Rocca goes from favourite to fall guy in 34 seconds

As he pushed off from the starting gates the clean-cut World Cup leader was master of his own destiny, intent on delivering the gold medal that his country have been expecting from him since the Winter Games began. Thirty-four seconds later he had been transformed into a cartoon figure as his skis caught and crossed and he catapaulted off the course before landing with his face in the snow and his head in his hands.

That face is on posters all over the Olympic venue above the words: "I don't smoke. I am already a winner". Sadly for this amiable 30-year-old family man, who had withdrawn from the giant slalom and super giant slalom in order to concentrate on this race, it is a contention which now appears a bit previous.

"I made a mistake," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't even have time to realise what had happened to me because I already had my face in the snow. The snow was little bit soft and when you want to go fast, mistakes happen. It's a shame because it's my last time in Italy in the Olympics."

Alberto Tomba, who was the last Italian man to earn an Olympic skiing gold with victory in the 1992 giant slalom, watched Rocca's fall from grace in the finishing area. "This can happen," Tomba said. "Giorgio tried to push away from the gates during the race as I suggested to him but unfortunately he went wrong. It shouldn't have happened."

Rocca fans had crammed on to the slopes leading down towards the course to watch his effort and hundreds more gathered before the giant TV screen in the middle of Sestriere.

The great man's demise killed the party atmosphere as swiftly as a parental knock on the door, and the banners being brandished in the stands - "Rocca gives us the gold", "Rocca'n'Roll" were quietly rolled up.

Thankfully for the host nation, the blow to their esteem had been softened by the exploits earlier in the week of the speed skater Enrico Fabris, who has already been acclaimed "The Man of the Games" by the Italian sporting paper Gazzetta dello Sport for winning two golds and a bronze.

Rocca, however, has probably lost his chance of receiving a personal phone call from Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who put in a call to Fabris in his moment of triumph. Berlusconi will not be wanting to associate himself with losers so close to an election.

At least Rocca has the opportunity of earning the consolation prize of the crystal globe trophy awarded to World Cup winners, given that he is currently 144 points ahead with only three races left. "Now I want this little ball very badly," he said.

The Italian was not the only favoured competitor to come to grief in the first of the two scheduled runs. Among the other 29 skiers who failed to negotiate the course were the United States' Ted Ligety, winner of the Combined Downhill, who was disqualified after straddling a gate, and Bode Miller, who completed an undistinguished showing at these Games by skiing off the course after doing the same.

Austria, who have already had a hugely successful time of it in the Alpine skiing - if not the cross-country - took full advantage to earn a clean sweep of the medals, with Benjamin Raich adding a second gold to the one he won in the giant slalom in a total of 1min 43.14sec ahead of colleagues Reinfried Herbst and Rainer Schönfelder.

Finland's Kalle Palander, a close second to Raich after the first run despite saying that he had "skied like a pussycat", attacked the second race like a roaring lion, but ended with a whimper when his time of 1:43.54 was annulled because he had straddled a gate.