Daily Updates — Live from Nagano

Men's Giant Slalom Report by Martin Bell [click to listen]

Transcribed from Audio:
Hermann Maier of Austria brought his tally of Olympic gold medals to two after winning the giant slalom a clear eight-tenths of a second ahead of his teammate, Stefan Eberharter. The bronze went to Switzerland's Michael von Gruenigen who had been the dominant force in giant slalom until the emergence of Hermann Maier this season.

In winning double gold in super G and giant slalom Maier emulated the feat of Germany's Markus Wasmeier in 1994 at the Lillehammer Olympics, and Austria has now one three of the four men's alpine skiing events at Nagano.

After the first run of the giant slalom, it seemed as though Austria would sweep the medals, but Austria's Christian Mayer (no relation to Hermann) suffered from nerves in the second run as he had done in Lillehammer and dropped from second to 9th. But with Hans Knauss in 4th place, the Austrians still had three men in the top four.

Italy's Alberto Tomba crashed out on the first run after only nine gates.