Kostelic wins first gold for Croatia

Skier Janica Kostelic presented Croatia with its first Winter Olympics medal on Thursday by winning the women's combined but the talk in Salt Lake City centred on the continuing row over figure skating's judges.

Johann Muehlegg, a German-born cross-country skier now proud to be Spanish, won his second title of the Games, putting Spain alongside traditional winter sports powers Switzerland and Finland in the medals table.

The rumpus over the judging of Monday's pairs competition showed few signs of abating on its fourth day as an agency report, appearing to add weight to allegations of vote-rigging, was firmly denied by the head of the French team.

Didier Gailhaguet, also head of the French figure skating federation, had been quoted as saying the French judge at the pairs might have been "manipulated".

"I completely deny the interpretation of words which the agency attributed to me in their story," a spokesman quoted Gailhaguet as saying on Thursday.

The judges' 5-4 vote to give the gold medal to Russian pair Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze ahead of Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier was widely condemned and led to accusations of bloc voting and vote trade-offs.

Ottavio Cinquanta, president of skating's ruling body (ISU), said he would not accelerate his inquiry into judging at the pairs competition despite a request by Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Kostelic's victory was a reward for her bravery in overcoming extensive knee surgery in the past year.

FINAL DOWNHILL

She dominated both slalom runs - run first because of high winds and fog in the morning - and clocked the third fastest time in the final downhill.

The 20-year-old beat Renate Goetschl by 1.49 seconds, leaving the powerful Austrian squad still searching for another gold to go with Fritz Strobl's in the men's downhill.

"I will need a night's sleep to realise what has happened to me," said Kostelic. "This is great, especially after having survived so many injury worries."

In Soldier Hollow, Muehlegg survived a fall to earn his adopted country's third Winter Olympics gold in the men's combined pursuit, crossing the line waving a Spanish flag.

Having won the morning's 10 km classical section, the 31-year-old took a 13-second lead into the freestyle race. He fell over in the first kilometre but recovered to win in a combined time of 49 minutes 20.4 seconds.

Spain won three golds at the last Summer Games in Sydney and its only previous winter gold was won by Francisco Fernandez Ochoa in the slalom in 1972.

Norwegians Frode Estil and Thomas Alsgaard were awarded silver medals in the first dead heat in cross-country history. Judges were unable to separate them in a photo-finish as they finished within one thousandth of a second of each other.

The ski jumping element of the men's team Nordic combined was postponed because of the high winds.