Odermatt silences critics with Olympic grand slalom gold

YANQING, China: Switzerland's Marco Odermatt finally lived up to expectations by holding his nerve in snow and fog to win gold in the men's Olympic giant slalom on Sunday (Feb 13).

Odermatt put the disappointment of two underwhelming outings in speed events behind him to clock a combined total of 2min 09.35sec over the two legs down the "Ice River" course in Yanqing, north of Beijing.

Slovenia's Zan Kranjec claimed silver thanks to the fastest second leg, 0.19sec off the pace, while reigning world champion Mathieu Faivre of France took bronze, 1.34sec behind the winner.

"It was a hard day, with the conditions, with such a long wait between the two runs," said Odermatt.

"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 in between."

Odermatt had come into the Beijing Games as current World Cup overall leader and one of the big favourites.

But he has disappointed on the artificial snow in China, finishing seventh in the downhill and skiing out of the super-G, a race in which he was expected to challenge for the Olympic title.

The giant slalom was a different ballgame, however, and only eight racers got within two seconds of Odermatt, many struggling with the heavy snow and increasingly foggy conditions that drastically reduced visibility.

"It was challenging, I really risked everything in the second run because I wanted not just the medal, I wanted the gold medal," he said.

"It's difficult because you can lose everything, but today it paid off."

The 24-year-old Swiss racer, who has won four of five World Cup giant slalom races this season, had been fastest down the first leg, just four-hundredths of a second ahead of Stefan Brennsteiner.