Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Top Moment of the Day – 16 February: Stunning second run lifts Clement Noel to Olympic gold

There is action every day at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 but we’ll select for you the best one at the end of the competitions, when Beijing is closing its doors. Today: Clement Noel finds absolution four years on from fourth place finish at PyeongChang 2018.

Newly crowned men’s alpine skiing slalom champion Clement Noel knows better than anyone how elusive an Olympic medal is.

"It’s one shot – one minute and 40 seconds every four years,” the 24-year-old Frenchman reminded everyone shortly after he flipped his fortunes around with a supersonic second run.

That left him with a combined time of 1:44:09, a huge 0.61 seconds ahead of Austria’s first-run leader and combined gold medallist Johannes Strolz, with Sebastian Foss-Solevaag of Norway taking bronze.

His words were a nod to his own disappointment four years ago at PyeongChang 2018 where he finished four-hundredths of a second off the podium in fourth place.

Even ahead of the Games, he pointed to the unpredictability of the Olympic slalom event which has now seen 19 different champions at 19 Games.

"There will be many contenders and surprised as always at the Games,” said Noel to Olympics.com. “The fastest one will take it all.”

And Noel has taken it all under the sun in Yanqing to end a long alpine skiing gold medal drought for France.

The last time a French man or woman topped the podium was at Turin 2006 when Antoine Deneriaz took the men's downhill title.

The significance of the moment was not lost on Noel’s coaching staff and team who shed tears of joy in response to their skier’s performance.

Just last month, their main man had seemed miles off the pace with an eighth-place finish at Wengen his best result in the lead-up to the Games.

But none of that