The China Mail - Gu pipped to gold again as Meillard extends Swiss ski dominance at Olympics

Gu was aiming to retain her big air title, one of the two golds she won four years ago when she was the darling of the Beijing Winter Games.

The withdrawal through injury of Switzerland's Mathilde Gremaud, who beat Gu into second in the slopestyle event earlier in these Olympics, should have smoothed her path to victory.

But Gu came up against inspired Canadian Megan Oldham, who pulled out all the stops to win at Livigno Snow Park.

Gu even risked slipping out of medal position after a poor second attempt but she came back impressively to score 89.00 with her final effort to propel her into the silver medal position.

However Oldham's cleaner skiing gave her a combined score of 180.75 to finish narrowly ahead of Gu (179.00) while Flora Tabanelli won bronze for Italy.

"It feels incredible," said Oldham. "I'm still trying to process it all. It's been such a dream of mine."

Gu has not competed in big air, in which competitors take off from a large ramp and perform aerial tricks, since the Beijing Games.

The Californian-born 22-year-old, who also has a modelling career and is one of the most marketable women athletes in world sport, has now won two silver medals in Italy and has a final chance of a gold when she goes in her favoured event, the halfpipe, on Saturday.

Her defeat on Monday means China has still not won a gold medal at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, with six days of competition to go.

- Swiss ski stranglehold -

Meillard's impressive victory in Bormio gave the Swiss four of the five golds on offer in men's skiing at these Games.

Atle Lie McGrath looked on track to redress the balance in Norway's favour when he led the slalom after the first run in Bormio.

But in the second leg McGrath hit a gate high on the course, ending his hopes.

Disgusted, he threw his poles away and lay in the snow and later collected his bag and wandered off into the forest next to the course to reflect alone.

Instead it was Meillard who took control of the race, clocking a winning time of 1min 53.61sec, with Austrian Fabio Gstrein winning silver, 0.35sec behind, and Henrik Kristoffersen rounding out the podium with a consolation bronze for Norway.

The slalom gold can be added to Franjo von Allmen's downhill and super-G titles, while Switzerland also won the men's team combined gold.

Meillard himself now has a full collection of medals from these Games, having also won a bronze in the giant slalom and a silver in the team combined event.

"Every medal is special," he said. "To win the slalom in the Olympics one year after being world champ is very special."

And he hailed the current strength of Swiss skiing.

"We're living in a bit of a golden era in Switzerland in skiing," he said.

"It's crazy what's been happening in the last few years, and so everyone has to enjoy it as much as possible because most likely we will not stay like that for the next 10 years."

Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara roared back from fifth place at the start of the day to win the pair's figure skating title.

In women's ice hockey, the USA moved into Thursday's final by thrashing Sweden 5-0 in the semi-finals.

The Americans, the current world champions, will play either reigning Olympic champions Canada or Switzerland, who were facing off in the other semi-final later Monday.

Italy is already celebrating its best-ever medal haul at a Winter Olympics with the host nation collecting 23 medals to overhaul its previous best total of 20 from the Lillehammer Games in 1994.

Federica Brignone's second victory of a fairytale Games, in the women's giant slalom on Sunday, was one of the most joyous of the eight Italian golds -- 10 months after she fractured her leg.

P.Deng--ThChM