SARAJEVO, Yugoslavia -- Swiss ski sensation Michela Figini, just 17 years old, made Olympic history Thursday in winning the gold medal in the women's downhill at the Winter Games.
Figini ran a flawless race to become the youngest gold medalist ever in the prestigious Olympic Alpine events. She is 19 days younger than compatriot Marie-Therese Nadig was when she won the 1972 downhill at Sapporo, Japan.
The hazel-eyed youngster from Prato Leventina, in the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, edged her older teammate Maria Walliser by five hundreths of a second.
Olga Charvatova of Czechoslovakia won the bronze medal, breaking up what would otherwise have been a clean Swiss sweep of the medals. Charvatova, with only 10 racers left to come down, barely nipped Switzerland's Ariane Ehrat, who had been third.
'It's unbelievable,' Figini said when she overcame her emotion after it was clear she had won. 'I've never been so happy in all my life. I'm so excited I have no words to express it. I concentrated at the start and in spite of my risking the course, I had no problems with the course. The gold medal was my goal. The only competitors I was scared of were Maria Walliser and Olga Charvatova.'
Debbie Armstrong of Seattle, who pulled off a shocking gold medal run in the women's giant slalom earlier this week, was never a factor in the downhill as she finished 21st in the field of 30 skiers. Armstrong, in fact, was the slowest of the three American girls entered. Holly Beth Flanders of Deerfield, N.H., was 16th and Maria Maricich of Sun Valley, Idaho, was 19th.
Figini began skiing for the Swiss women's A team only last year, concentrating on the giant slalom. She took up the downhill seriously just this season, winning a World Cup race at Megeve in France.
Walliser, 20, from Mosnang, currently heads World Cup downhill standings and was a top favorite for gold at Sarajevo.
But Figini's victory, Walliser conceded, was 'truly deserved' after the confusion Wednesday when the downhill was started but then broken off because of a mistake in preparing the track and fog.
Before the race was interrupted and rescheduled for Thursday, Figini had been holding down the fastest time but then had to suffer the nervous strain of an entirely new start a day later.
Figini posted 1.13.36 minutes in winning her gold medal at an average speed of 61 m.p.h. Walliser was a fraction slower in 1.13.41 minutes.
Charvatova won the bronze in 1.13.53 minutes, four-tenths of a second ahead of Ehrat's 1.13.95.