Hirscher grabs gold again, Braaten wins slopestyle

PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA » Two events, two gold medals for Marcel Hirscher.

The 28-year-old Austrian has a good chance to leave the Pyeongchang Olympics with one more.

Hirscher won the men’s giant slalom Sunday, finishing in 2 minutes, 18.04 seconds, and beating Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen by 1.27 seconds — the largest victory in the event at an Olympics in 50 years. He won the alpine combined last Tuesday and has the slalom — his best event — to come.

“At the moment, I’m pumped!” Hirscher said.

Norway’s Oystein Braaten was also excited after winning the men’s ski slopestyle, edging American Nick Goepper for gold.

“First run, I did what I planned to do, what I wanted to do as well as I could, and it held up against all the great runs today,” Braaten said. “Just being a part of a final like this was amazing.”

Norway won its fifth cross-country skiing gold of these games, taking the men’s 4x10-kilometer relay. Oleksandr Abramenko was the winner of the men’s aerials, giving Ukraine its first medal of these games and just its third gold ever at the Winter Games.

In a dramatic photo finish in the biathlon 15-kilometer mass start, Martin Fourcade edged Simon Schempp to win his second gold medal of the games. And, in the last medal event of the night, Nao Kodaira won the women’s 500-meter speedskating title in an Olympic record.

At Yongpyong Alpine Center, Hirscher led after the first run, but saw Kristoffersen rise from 10th-fastest in the morning to having the quickest time in the second run.

France’s Alexis Pinturault took the bronze, finishing 1.31 seconds behind Hirscher. Ted Ligety, the 2014 Olympic champion, was 15th with a time of 2:21.25.

At Phoenix Snow Park, Braaten was the big star on the slopes despite most eyes being set on American Gus Kenworthy, who came out as gay about two years after capturing the silver medal in Russia. Kenworthy failed to land any of his three runs and finished last.

The Norwegian team of Didrik Toenseth, Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Simen Hegstad Krueger and Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won the cross-country relay in 1 hour, 33 minutes and 4.9 seconds.

That was good enough to beat the second-place Russian athletes by 9.4 seconds. France took the bronze.

Abramenko scored a 128.51 on his final jump, edging out China’s Zongyang Jia by just 0.46 points.