The Russian Olympic Committee team made a slow start to the men’s ice hockey at the Beijing Games on Wednesday with the tournament favourites struggling to a 1-0 win over Switzerland. In the absence of players from the leading North American NHL, Russia are tipped to repeat their triumph from Pyeongchang 2018 but will need to lift their game to do so. Anton Slepyshev was credited with the only goal a few seconds before the end of the first period but it was a fluke which broke the Swiss resistance. Enzo Corvi turned the puck into his own net from a feed across goal. Russia then had a second pe…