Winter Olympics: Koss's final surge to another world record

JOHANN Olav Koss lived up to his nickname of Big Boss Koss, powering to an Olympic gold medal and world record double yesterday when he followed up his victory in the 5,000 metres by retaining his 1500m speed skating title at the Viking Ship stadium.

Koss set an insurmountable target for his Dutch rivals, Rintje Ritsma and Falko Zandstra, who had to settle for silver and bronze, respectively. The Norwegian started slowly in the second pair and with a lap to go was 0.40sec off the world record pace set by Ritsma on the rink on 8 January, but Koss put in the quickest last lap in the history of the event, 29.37sec, to lower the record to 1min 51.29sec from Ritsma's mark of 1:51.60.

'It's a great feeling. I'd never felt like that all the way from the start before,' said Koss, who had been plagued by self-doubt for weeks before the Games started.

Gerda Weissensteiner completed the hat-trick of major luge titles to provide Italy with their second gold medal of the Games. The defending champion was a convincing winner of the women's singles, having also won last month's European Championships in Konigssee.

Weissensteiner clocked the fastest times on all four runs to finish 0.759sec ahead of Germany's Susi Erdmann in an aggregate time of 3min 15.517sec, covering the 1,185- metre Hunderfossen track at an average speed of over 116kph.

'I didn't start to believe in the gold medal before the final run because the track is very difficult, especially round the No 12 and 13 curves, and anything can always happen,' Weissensteiner said.

She had led by 0.252sec after the previous day's first two runs, and that advantage was extended to 0.642sec when Erdmann could only manage the 11th-fastest time on the third descent. The gold medal was then there for the taking and Weissensteiner made no mistake with a final time of 48.937sec.

Austria's Andrea Tagwerker took the bronze medal a further 0.376sec adrift, with fourth place going to her team-mate Angelika Neuner, who won the silver behind her sister, Doris, in Albertville.

As if North Americans have not done enough in the Alpine events so far with wins by Tommy Moe and Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, they look determined to make it three golds out of three in Saturday's women's downhill. In the first practice yesterday, Pace, who won the World Cup race on the same piste last year, was fastest down the 2,641m Olympiabakken course in 1min 40.61sec.

Katja Seizinger, of Germany, was second fastest, ahead of her team- mate, Katrin Gutensohn. The American, Picabo Street, was fourth.