Daily Updates — Live from Nagano

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

Transcribed from Audio:
Deborah Compagnoni of Italy set a new Olympic record for alpine skiing by winning gold medals at three consecutive Olympic games when she won the giant slalom at Nagano on Friday.

At the age of 27, she is unlikely to stick around for Salt Lake City in 2002, but she will retire knowing that her place in the history books is secure.

On a miserable day, at Mt. Higashidate, with driving rain making visibility extremely difficult, Compagnoni set the fastest time on both runs of the long and arduous course.

Austria's Alexandra Meissnitzer, who had already won bronze in the super G, was nearly two seconds behind Compagnoni in second place, and Germany's Katja Seizinger was third after a serious mistake after the end of the first run.

Germany's Martina Ertl was in 4th place once again, just as she had been in the previous day's slalom.

Considering the weather conditions, the organizers did an excellent job of preparing the course and the snow was hard and icy. Although it did get cut up as the race progressed. All of the racers had problems on the final steep section before the finish partly because their vision was impaired by raindrops on their goggles. But it was good to see Deborah Compagnoni hanging on to her first run lead with an attacking second run after she had previously surrendured her advantage in the slalom.

Meissnitzer at 24, and Seizinger at 25 years of age, may well be challenging for further Olympic medals in 2002. But for Deborah Compagnoni, who is often called the female Alberto Tomba in Italy, it was a fitting end to a wonderful career.