"I have been dreaming about this since I was little," reacted Maze, who also won Slovenia's first ever Winter Olympic gold medal to follow on from the two silvers she took at Vancouver 2010.

"The first ski race I ever won in my life was a downhill so before I went up today I said to myself - this has to be it, I can do it and I just went for it." 

Tina Maze also won Slovenia's first Winter Olympic gold medal in any sport
©Getty Images


A similar reaction was expressed by Gisin who, until today, had won neither a World Championship nor an Olympic medal.

"This is incredible and I am overwhelmed with emotions," said the Swiss.

"Now that I have won I am living the dream, but this is better than dreaming."

There was disappointment for two of the pre-event favourites as Julia Mancuso of the United States and Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany finished eighth and 13th respectively. 

But there was more success for Germany elsewhere as they gained a two gold medal lead at the top of the medals table.

First Eric Frenzel secured the opening Nordic combined title of the Games when he got the better of Japanese challenger Akito Watabe.

Then the nation's utter dominance continued in luge when Tobias Arlt and Tobias Wendl dominated the competition and eventually won by a huge margin of 0.522 seconds.

Germany made it three out of three in the luge doubles ©AFP/Getty Images


While Germany have proved utterly dominant in the luge - winning three gold medals and being very likely to add a fourth in tomorrow's relay final - Russia are proving similarly successful in figure skating.

In front of a passionate and excited home crowd again today, Tatiana Volosozha and Maxim Trankov led home a Russian one-two ahead of Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov in the pairs.

The German duo of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy won bronze despite falling in their final routine.

There was elation for the Russian pair as they secured a second gold medal for Russia
©Getty Images




After the disappointment of Shaun White failing to win a medal last night, the US also made swift amends in the halfpipe snowboard when Kaitlin Farrington claimed gold.

Farrington, perhaps the least known the three Americans in the field, took an early lead and then held on as those around her fell away.

Defending champion Torah Bright of Australia took silver while Farrington's team-mate Kelly Clark took bronze.

The other gold on day five, predictably enough, went to the Netherlands in speed skating. as Stefan Groothuis secured their fourth title in five events.

That made the Netherlands one of three countries tied on four gold medals, along with Canada and Norway, as Germany opened up some daylight at the top of the pile. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
February 2014: Carina Vogt leaps to first female gold in ski jumping
February 2014: Dutch net second clean sweep in speed skating as remarkable run continues
February 2014: Russian figure skaters woo crowd to secure first home gold of Sochi 2014
February 2014: American slopestyle snowboarder wins first gold medal of Sochi 2014