Alpine sking-Swiss golden boy Von Allmen wins super-G to complete hat-trick

BORMIO, Italy, Feb 11 : Switzerland's Franjo von Allmen joined a very exclusive club of Alpine skiers as he powered to his third gold medal of the Milano Cortina Olympics with a super-G masterclass down the Stelvio on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old followed his gold in the downhill and team combined with another full throttle blast down the iconic Bormio track to win by 0.13 seconds from American Ryan Cochran-Siegle.

He is the first male Alpine skier since French great Jean-Claude Killy in Grenoble in 1968 to win three golds at the same Olympics - Killy doing it in downhill, slalom and giant slalom.

Austria's Toni Sailer managed the same treble in 1956 in Cortina, while the only female skier to win three golds in one Games was Croatia's Janica Kostelic at Salt Lake City in 2002.

"For the moment I feel like I am dreaming. I hope I don't wake up, it's completely surreal what's going on today and the whole Olympics," a beaming Von Allmen told reporters.

"I was sure I wasn't up for gold. Maybe today I had a little bit of luck with the slope, with the snow, with the early bib (start). Maybe it was a little bit slower after me."

Von Allmen once again left his teammate Marco Odermatt in the shade. Odermatt has been the dominant male skier for five years and was tipped for multiple golds but had to settle for a bronze medal to add to his team combined silver.

Odermatt gave it everything but was ragged in the closing stages where Von Allmen was smooth, and came up 0.28 seconds short. His last chance for gold will be Saturday's giant slalom.

"I won bronze. You have to be happy if you win an Olympic medal but I wanted a little bit more. I wanted the gold," the 28-year-old said. "On the bottom I made some little mistakes, two or three times.