Sawt Falasteen - Gu pipped to Olympic gold again as Meillard extends Swiss ski dominance

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 Games.

The withdrawal through injury of Switzerland's Mathilde Gremaud, who beat Gu into second in the slopestyle event earlier in these Olympics, boosted her chances.

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 recovered 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 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, later this week.

Gu insisted she felt no disappointment after collecting the fifth Olympic medal of her career.

"I'm the most decorated female free skier in history. I think that's an answer in and of itself," she said.

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

- Swiss ski stranglehold -

Meillard's impressive victory in Bormio means the Swiss have won four of the five golds on offer in men's skiing.

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

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

Disgusted, he threw his poles away and later 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 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.

Georgia's Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava won silver and overnight leaders Minerva Fabienne Hase and Nikita Volodin of Germany took bronze.

In women's ice hockey, the USA will play Canada in Thursday's final for the fifth consecutive Olympics.

The USA made the biggest impression by thrashing Sweden 5-0 in their semi-final while Canada relied on two goals from Marie-Philip Poulin to beat Switzerland 2-1.

Italy is already celebrating its best-ever medal haul at a Winter Olympics after collecting 23 medals, including eight golds, to overhaul its previous best of 20 from the Lillehammer Games in 1994.

The host nation lies second in the medals table behind Norway, with 12 golds. The United States and the Netherlands both have six.

C.Hamad--SF-PST