Matt becomes oldest Alpine champion

Austrian skier Mario Matt won the gold medal in the men’s slalom Saturday in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Matt, 34, beat teammate Marcel Hirscher by 0.28 of a second to become the oldest men’s Olympic slalom champion and the oldest Olympic Alpine gold medalist.
Austrian skier Mario Matt won the gold medal in the men’s slalom Saturday in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia. Matt, 34, beat teammate Marcel Hirscher by 0.28 of a second to become the oldest men’s Olympic slalom champion and the oldest Olympic Alpine gold medalist.

KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia - Under the lights at Rosa Khotur in the final Olympic Alpine event, the Austrian men went 1-2 in the slalom Saturday night.

A night after America’s Mikaela Shiffrin, at 18, became the youngest skier to win the slalom, Austria’s Mario Matt became the oldest skier to win an Olympic Alpine event.

Matt turns 35 in April and won his first Olympic medal with a two-run time of 1 minute 41.84. He had never finished better than 34th in an Olympic race.

Matt had the fastest time in the first run and held off teammate Marcel Hirscher in the second run for the gold. Hirscher is the No.1 ranked slalom racer in the world and charged all the way from ninth to second to win the silver.

Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen, only 19, came from 15th in the first run to win the bronze. He became the youngest man to earn an Olympic Alpine medal.

The two medals upped Austria’s final alpine count to nine, with the U.S. finishing with five.

The Americans weren’t supposed to be a factor in the event, although Ted Ligety at least made it interesting.

Three days after winning gold in giant slalom, Ligety finished sixth after the first run. That put him 0.86 behind Matt and only 0.11 out of third place.

Ligety became one of the many to ski off course in the second run and afterward complained about the tricky course setting by Croatia’s Ante Kostelic.

The top American was Nolan Kasper, who was 13th.

SNOWBOARD Wild wins again

American-born Russian Vic Wild won the parallel slalom to bookend the gold he won in parallel giant slalom, strengthening his adopted country’s bid to top the medal standings.

Wild competes for Russia after marrying Russian snowboarder Alena Zavarzina.

WOMEN’S CROSS-COUNTRY Norwegian leads sweep

Marit Bjoergen became the most decorated female Winter Olympian, leading a Norwegian sweep in 30-kilometer cross-country.

Her sixth Olympic gold gave her a career total of 10, putting her ahead of Russian cross-country skier Lyubov Egorova.

MEN’S BIATHLON Record seventh for Russia

Russia won a record seventh Olympic biathlon relay gold medal after Anton Shipulin surged to the front on the final lap of the men’s 4x7.5-kilometer event, holding off Germany and Austria.

Defending champion Norway led for most of the race but dropped to fourth after anchor Emil Hegle Svendsen missed three targets in his final shooting, denying teammate Ole Einar Bjoerndalen the chance of winning a record ninth career Winter Olympic gold medal.

MEN’S BOBSLED

Russians lead 4-man

Trying to become the sixth driver to win two bobsled gold medals in the same games, Alexander Zubkov has a narrow lead over Latvia’s Oskars Melbardis after the first two runs of the four-man competition. It is shaping up to be a sled-to-sled battle between the world’s fastest drivers on ice.

The favorite after dominating the two-man event, the 39-year-old Zubkov and his crew completed their two runs down the Sanki Sliding Center track on Saturday in 1 minute, 50.19 seconds - 0.04 seconds ahead of Latvia’s Oskars Melbardis, who jumped three sleds with a blistering second run.

USA-1 driver Steven Holcomb, the defending Olympic champion who couldn’t catch Zubkov in two-man and settled for bronze, is fourth, 0.17 seconds behind Zubkov. Maximilian Arndt in Germany-1 is third, 0.16 seconds back.

SPEEDSKATING Dutch add to haul

The final day of speedskating at the Sochi Olympics was nothing more than a victory lap for the mighty Dutch.

The Netherlands capped its dominant performance with two more gold medals Saturday in team pursuit, bringing the nation’s haul to a staggering eight golds and 23 medals overall.

The Dutch men cruised through the finals, pulling away from South Korea to win gold with an Olympic record time of 3 minutes, 37.71 seconds. South Korea seemed more than thrilled with its silver on the men’s side, with Poland rallying to beat Canada for the bronze.

Then, the Dutch women crushed Japan by nearly 12 seconds in the semifinals and blew away Poland with their third Olympic record time in three races. Ireen Wust, Jorien ter Mors and Marrit Leenstra led by more than a second and a half after the first half-lap and steadily built the advantage from there, winning by more than 7 seconds in 2:58.05. Wust became the first athlete at the Games with five medals - two golds and three silvers.

Medals table

Through Saturday (95 of 98 events)

NATION

G S B TOT

Russia 11 10 8 29

United States 9 7 11 27

Norway 11 5 10 26

Canada 9 10 5 24

Netherlands 8 7 9 24

Germany 8 6 5 19

Austria 4 8 5 17

France 4 4 7 15

Sweden 2 6 6 14

Switzerland 6 3 2 11

China 3 4 2 9

South Korea 3 3 2 8

Czech Republic 2 4 2 8

Slovenia 2 2 4 8

Japan 1 4 3 8

Italy 0 2 6 8

Belarus 5 0 1 6

Poland 4 1 1 6

Finland 1 3 1 5

Britain 1 1 2 4

Australia 0 2 1 3

Latvia 0 1 2 3

Ukraine 1 0 1 2

Slovakia 1 0 0 1

Croatia 0 1 0 1

Kazakhstan 0 0 1 1

Sports, Pages 26 on 02/23/2014

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