Medals update: Marco Odermatt wins Switzerland's third gold of Beijing 2022 in Alpine skiing

Already a superstar in his own country with his face plastered over advertising everywhere you look, Marco Odermatt is now set for megastar status after winning the men's giant slalom event at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre on Sunday (13 February) in a combined time of 2:09.35 from the two runs. Lara Gut-Behrami won the same discipline for Switzerland in the women's event on Friday (11 December) with Beat Feuz also winning the men's downhill to give Switzerland three gold medals in Alpine skiing so far at Beijing 2022.

Holding his nerve after going into the second run just 0.04 seconds ahead of Stefan Brennsteiner of Austria, Odermatt roared in delight on seeing he'd won the Olympic title 0.19 seconds ahead of a still delighted Zan Kranjec. The Slovenian claimed silver after a superb second run enabled him to climb onto the podium from eighth place after the first run to a silver medal in a time of 2:09.54.

After a mistake on his second run, Brennsteiner finished well down the field in 27th place.

"It's unbelievable," said Odermatt post race. "It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs. It was more than five hours for me, it was such a long time to re-think everything and it was hard to stay focused. I tried to sleep some minutes inbetween. I actually never dreamt about it but now it still feels like a dream."

Despite an error, France's Mathieu Faivre claimed the bronze medal in 2:10.69, rising an impressive 10 places after the first run. The leopard-spotted haircut belonging to River Radamus sadly didn't make an appearance on the podium with the American finishing in fourth (2:10.95) with Faivre's compatriot's Thibaut Favrot and Alexis Pinturault finishing in equal