Razzoli wins gold, Austrian men go home empty-handed (1st Lead)

Feb 27, 2010, 22:54 GMT

Whistler, Canada - Guiliano Razzoli captured Italy's first men's alpine gold medal since Alberto Tomba 18 years ago by winning Saturday's slalom while Austria finished their worst ever Olympics with zero men's medals.

Razzoli continued his strong slalom season by racing down the lower Dave Murray course in a combined time of 1 minute 39.32 seconds for his first Olympic medal.

Italy's last alpine victory came at Albertville 1992 when Tomba won the giant slalom.

Ivica Kostelic of Croatia finished 0.16 seconds behind Razzoli to add slalom silver to his super combined silver earlier at these Games and the combined silver from 2006.

Andre Myhrer of Sweden jumped from 10th in the first run to the bronze medal, 0.44 seconds slower than Razzoli. It was Sweden's first men's alpine medal since Lars-Boerje Eriksson took bronze in the super-G at Calgary 1988.

Austria meanwhile finished off the podium for the fifth men's race in Whistler as defending Olympic slalom champion and 2005 slalom world champion Benjamin Raich fell from third place in the first run to fourth place - five-hundredths of a second behind Myhrer.

And fellow Austrians Marcel Hirscher and Reinfried Herbst took fifth and 12th place, respectively.

The alpine super powers Austria had never failed to win a men's medal at an Olympics in which they participated.

Mitja Valencic of Slovenia was second after the first run but ended sixth overall.

Bode Miller of the United States straddled a gate at the very top of the course and skied out, ending the possibility of becoming the first skier to win a medal in all five Olympic alpine disciplines.