Slalom Champion Sets an Age Record
KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - A day after Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest women's Olympic slalom champion, 34-year-old Mario Matt of Austria on Saturday became the oldest men's Olympic slalom champion, winning the gold medal over his teammate Marcel Hirscher by 28-hundredths of a second.
Matt, who turns 35 in April, is also the oldest Olympic Alpine gold medalist. He had never finished higher than 34th in three previous Olympic races dating to 2006.
Bode Miller, who won a bronze medal here at 36, is the oldest Olympic Alpine medalist.
Hirscher, who has won the last two World Cup overall titles and is the top-ranked slalom racer in the world this season, struggled in slushy snow conditions caused by daytime temperatures in the 50s. Hirscher had the ninth-best time in the first run contested in the afternoon, then stormed back with the second-fastest run in the evening to claim his first Olympic medal.
Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway won the bronze medal, 0.83 of a second behind Matt's combined winning time of 1 minute 41.84 seconds. Kristoffersen, 19, is also the youngest male Alpine Olympic medalist.
'I thought today I would just ski and see what happens,' said Matt, who has won 14 World Cup slalom races. 'It was an attitude that worked. A massive goal has come through for me 15 or 20 years after I first thought about it.'
Matt has twice won the World Cup season-long slalom title, although the last time was in 2007. He is also the oldest man to win a World Cup slalom race.
Ted Ligety of the United States was sixth after the first run and only 11-hundredths from the bronze medal position, but like many of the leaders he could not complete the second run and skied off the course, which was set by Ante Kostelic, a coach and father of the Croatian skier Ivica Kostelic. Ante Kostelic's courses are known to be especially daunting and quirky. And his positioning of the gates for the second run proved to be controversial.
Five of the top eight finishers from the first run did not finish their second runs. That group included the medal contenders Alexis Pinturault, Felix Neureuther and Jean-Baptiste Grange.
Ligety said: 'Ante set a difficult, typical course for him, which is borderline unsportsmanlike to set those kinds of courses on these kind of hills. But that's how it goes. Everyone had to ski it. A lot of the best guys didn't get a chance to finish, and so many guys went out. It was a battle of attrition.
'But Mario is one of the best slalom skiers in the world. He deserves it.'
The medals for Matt and Hirscher will be a welcome, final achievement for the Austrian men's team, which had previously won just one Alpine medal at the Sochi Olympics. The Austrian men's team, usually an international power, was shut out at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
The Austrian ski team won nine medals over all, including three gold medals, at the Sochi Games, the most of any country. The United States was next with five medals, including two gold medals.
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