Spain finally on the board

Oriol Cardona Coll won Spain's first Winter Olympics gold medal for 54 years as he claimed victory in the men's sprint in the inaugural ski mountaineering event yesterday.

Minutes earlier, Switzerland's Marianne Fatton also made history as she beat big favourite Emily Harrop, of France, to become the first Olympic champion in the multi-discipline sport that made its Games debut in Bormio.

Cardona Coll dominated the six-man final, making no mistake through the various transitions on the up and down circuit to beat Russian Nikita Filippov. France's Thibault Anselmet took the bronze.

Spain's only previous Winter Olympics gold was won by Alpine skier Francisco Fernandez Ochoa at Sapporo in 1972 and they had not won a medal at the Milano-Cortina Games until yesterday.