MILAN: Loic Meillard added another gold to the Swiss near-domination of men’s alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics on Monday as the Swiss men’s team have now snapped up 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 in Bormio.

But in the second leg he hit a gate high on the course and skied out.

Disgusted, he threw his poles away and lay in the snow.

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.

“I had to give it all and try my best,” he said. “And when I saw some green (denoting the best time on the scoreboard), I was like, amazing. A third medal, third race. You never know if it’s going to be gold or not.”

In curling, Anna Hasselborg’s Sweden continued their perfect start to the women’s competition as they beat Switzerland 6-4 to pick up their sixth straight win and cement their position at the top of the round-robin standings.

While Sweden already had five victories to their name, the game against Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland, who are four-times world champions, was the toughest test of their campaign.

“We know they were the team to beat,” said Hasselborg, who won gold at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang and bronze in Beijing four years ago.

“They’ve had an amazing season and we haven’t played them this year, but they have played so well. So we just wanted to go out there and play the other rock colour and just make our shots.”

Rachel Homan’s Canada were much-improved as they beat China 10-5 to claim their second win of the competition.

Canada are two-times world champions and were pre-tournament favourites to win gold. Canada are joint-sixth in the standings with two wins from five games, level with Sophie Jackson’s Britain, who beat Denmark 7-2.

On Sunday, Dutch speed-skating star Jutta Leerdam was denied a second gold medal in Italy by team-mate Femke Kok in a thrilling 500 metres contest.

Kok turned the tables on Leerdam, the girlfriend of American YouTuber Jake Paul, after the positions were reversed in the 1000m event earlier in the Games.

Ticket Demand Rampant

Meanwhile, demand for Winter Olympics tickets has risen later than for other major sports events, with fans committing after the holiday season and continuing purchases into the Games’ second week, On Location president Paul Caine said.Fans packed the streets around the Arco della Pace, where one of two Olympic cauldrons dazzled tourists and locals over the weekend as enthusiasm for the Games appeared to be surging.

Organisers on Monday said total ticket sales have topped 1.3 million at the halfway mark, and were rising daily.

“Yesterday, we sold 108,000 tickets,” Games spokesman Luca Casassa said at a press conference.

“We are extremely happy with the sold tickets. Spectators have responded extremely well to the Games,” he said.

“We can see that in the number of sold tickets, which keeps increasing day by day. It is a linear increase, and we believe it will continue during the second week.”

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2026