Ammann soars to stunning success

Simon Ammann stood at the finish area of the K120 ski jump run yesterday, planted his skis in the snow, kissed them and stared at the sky with an expression of bemusement on his young face. The 20-year-old from Grabs, no more than an also-ran throughout this season, had just reached out to seize a second Olympic title in the space of four days. The hardest part of his day, it seemed, was taking in the magnitude of his achievement.

However, as he turned to the frenzied waving of Swiss flags within the Utah Olympic Park crowd, his expression changed swiftly into one of joy. The man whose exploits on the K90 hill had prompted the press to re-name him the Swiss Mystery Man had practised his beguiling arts once again to supreme purpose.

His slight frame, bent almost parallel to his splayed skis, drifted on and on over the lined ice before drifting down to settle at 133 metres, half a metre further than his first jump of the day. With additional points for style, he was established in gold medal position ahead of Poland's Adam Malysz, joint favourite for the event before the Games got under way, and Matti Hautemaeki of Finland.

Only one man had it in his power to deprive the genial student of the historic distinction of being not just Switzerland's first Olympic ski jump champion, but the only man to have won on both hills at the Games other than Finland's Matti Nykanen, double gold medallist in 1988.

But Germany's Sven Hannawald, silver medallist in Sunday's K90, could not match the Swiss with his final effort, following up his first effort of 132.5m with 131, and losing style points on an unsteady landing. A shrug of the shoulders showed that Hannawald knew he was out of the medals, and the white crosses on red backgrounds came madly to life. "Simon performed perfectly in winning the gold medal," said Malysz. "My first jump was not excellent – I took off too late. My second was very good. Overall, I am very satisfied with the silver."

Amman's form before the Games did nothing to indicate that he was on the brink of such an astounding leap forward, although a record of five top-10 finishes at World Cup events in December at least gave evidence of a consistent level of performance. But he had finished 35th at the 1998 Nagano Games, and was only 45th overall in the 1999-2000 world standings. He was also recovering from missing the whole of January after suffering from concussion.

"I did not imagine it was possible that I would win. It's a dream," said Amman, who admitted that his hands had shaken with nerves before the final jump which had secured him his first gold of these Games.

While Amman was offering the 19th Winter Games cause for celebration, the president of the International Skating Union, Ottavio Cinquanta, was offering the world's press – and the Canadian press in particular – the opportunity to question him over Monday night's controversial awarding of the ice skating pairs title to Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia.

Cinquanta confirmed that the ISU were looking into an official allegation of misconduct in the judging of the final, where the decision not to award gold to the Canadian pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier prompted outrage both inside the Salt Lake Ice Center and throughout much of the skating world. "I was embarrassed about what happened, but I can tell you that I do not think to be in the presence of a scandal," Cinquanta said. However, he promised that if allegations were substantiated by the investigation which will be made public at the ISU Council meeting here next Monday there would be severe punishments.

"If we find something wrong you can be sure that we will be very, very tough," he said. "But I cannot change the result of the competition." He added that a proposal to change the way judges operated was also being proposed to the council.

An extra-end defeat to Norway left Hammy McMillan's Great Britain curling team needing to win all six of their remaining round-robin matches to qualify for the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, the snowboarders have been tested again for drugs and this time they are clean.

Stressing that there is no rerun so far of the marijuana scandal involving a Canadian snowboarder four years ago, doping officials said that none of the first 100 urine tests among all athletes had found drugs.

"The snowboarders have competed, the snowboarders have been tested and all of the tests so far have been negative," said Doug Rollins, the doping control director.