Winter Olympics: Austria's Marcel Hirscher wins giant slalom for second gold

Austrian skiing great Marcel Hirscher claimed his second gold medal of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang with a sensational win in the giant slalom.

He finished 1.27 seconds ahead of Norway's Henrik Kristoffersen while Frenchman Alexis Pinturault took bronze.

The 28-year-old had never claimed an Olympic gold before winning the combined event on Tuesday.

He remains on course for a hat-trick of medals with Thursday's slalom to come.

"Now it pays off. The first Olympics, they were not so successful," said Hirscher, who missed out on gold at Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi four years ago.

"Gold in the combined was a big surprise. Today a lot of people, especially the media, hoped and expected that I win another gold medal.

"Never expect something in professional sport. But my confidence and speed were high."

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"He is just too good. He is in a different league," BBC Sport skiing commentator Matt Chilton said.

Hirscher carried a 0.67-second lead into the final run and in the end won in a time of two minutes 18.04 seconds.

He has won 55 World Cup races - the second-most of all time - and is now the reigning Olympic, World Cup and world champion in the giant slalom.

Kristoffersen's silver follows eight second-place finishes in the World Cup this season, six of which have also been to Hirscher.

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Italy's Luca de Aliprandini spectacularly crashed out at the end of his run as he attempted to make ground on the medal positions, but says he managed to avoid serious injury.

The 27-year-old was using a ski pole as a crutch to support the left leg he hurt when barrelling into the safety netting at the Yongpyong Alpine Centre.

"I wanted to go home with something and you have to push like this if you want to do something," he said after he left empty-handed for a second straight Winter Games.

"It's so sad but I go home without regrets and I hope everything is OK."

Korea's Shin conquers puck fear

The joint Korea team have conceded 22 goals in four games at the Winter Olympics

Goalkeeper Shin So-jung pulled off an astonishing 51 saves as the unified Korean women's ice hockey team lost their fourth successive Olympic match in a 2-0 defeat by Switzerland.

The team, which includes South Koreans and 12 North Koreans, cannot win a medal in Pyeongchang and have shipped 22 goals in four games, scoring just once.

"I was nervous in the first game when the puck came towards me," said Shin. "But since the [third] match against Japan, I've been wanting the puck to continue coming to me."

Sabrina Zollinger and Evelina Raselli were on target for Switzerland.

Meanwhile, in the men's preliminary rounds, the two top-ranked teams in Group C met with Sweden beating Finland 3-1 to maintain their perfect start to the Games.

Sweden have conceded just once in their opening three matches while it was a first defeat for Finland, who look set to progress to the quarter-finals alongside the Swedes.

Elsewhere, Canada saw off hosts South Korea 4-0, Czech Republic beat Switzerland 4-1, Germany won 2-1 against Norway and Japan were 2-1 winners against Sweden.

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Germany set pace in two-man bobsleigh

Germany's Nico Walther and Christian Poser hold a lead of 0.10 seconds after the two-man bobsleigh heats

German sleds dominated the opening heats of the men's two-man bobsleigh competition, with pilot Nico Walther setting a confident gold-medal pace ahead of Canada's Justin Kripps and Alexander Kopacz.

Walther and brakeman Christian Poser crossed the line with a combined time of one minute 38.39 seconds - a lead of 0.10secs over Kripps.

The German pair took the final curve so quickly their sled overturned and Walther and Poser hurtled across the finish line with their helmets scraping along the wall of the ice track at the Olympic Sliding Centre. Neither athlete was injured.

Germany's Johannes Lochner and world champion Francesco Friedrich occupy third heading into Monday's final.

In the first heat, Latvia's Oskars Melbardis led the field but the Sochi gold medallist was unable to maintain that pace in heat two, slipping to fourth place.

Other medals on Sunday

Martin Fourcade won gold by a slender margin after having to settle for silver in the 15km mass start at the past two Olympics

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• Norway's Braaten wins gold in men's ski slopestyle

• Norway win men's 4x10km relay gold

• Ukraine's Abramenko wins aerial gold to break Belarus' dominance

• Japan's Kodaira upsets Lee in women's 500m speed skating final

Other news from day nine

• A Russian athlete is suspected of failing a doping test, according to Russian news agency Tass. The neutral Olympic Athletes from Russia are yet to confirm the name of the athlete.

• Pyeongchang organisers were given a pat on the back as the Games reached its halfway stage. Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi said: "What is particularly pleasing is the quality of the fields of play. This is the result of long and hard work."

• Swiss freeskier Fabian Bosch refused to blame contracting norovirus for his failure to qualify for the ski slopestyle final. Bosch and team-mate Elias Ambuhl were quarantined for 48 hours, but the 20-year-old insisted he was "100%, for sure" by competition time.

• A Russian Olympic official says flying the country's flag at the closing ceremony will be worth more than winning medals as neutral athletes. "We don't have the issue of fighting for the first place as a team," said Stanislav Pozdnyakov, of the Olympic Athletes of Russia team. "Our main goal is to return home with the flag."