PATSCHERKOFEL, Jan 21 - One by one, the favourites crashed or skied off course in Saturday's Men's Slalom event.

In the end, only one of the pre-race medal contenders remained, and Sandro SIMONET (SUI) won Gold with an astonishing 1.90 second lead over the rest of the field, finishing in 1 minute, 18.36 seconds.

Dries VAN DEN BROECKE (BEL) claimed an Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games Silver medal with a time of 1:20.26, and Mathias Elmar GRAF (AUT) took the Bronze in 1.20.35.

SIMONET established a 1.18-second lead going into the second run after top contenders such as Leny HERPIN (FRA), Marco SCHWARZ (AUT), and Martin FJELDBERG (NOR) all skied off course on the first run.

SIMONET said he was not fazed by creating such a commanding lead ahead of the second run, in the final Alpine Skiing event at Innsbruck 2012.

"Normally, I’m not nervous once I go into the race," SIMONET said. "Since I was already ahead, I knew that I didn’t have to tackle [the course] very aggressively."

Aggressive or not, the 16 year old still managed to ski the fastest second run of the day, widening his lead to 1.90 seconds for Gold.

The Swiss skier's conservative approach resulted in two small mistakes early on. After that, he thought, "Now, I have to go for it," he said.

It was a tough run to ski top to bottom. The driving snow created a bumpy, rutted course, and 25 competitors did not finish.

It was SIMONET's third medal of the Games. He took Bronze medals in the Men's Super Combined and the Giant Slalom.

"That's surely the best moment in my career," SIMONET said. "After the two Bronze medals, I'm so glad it is Gold this time."

Silver medallist VAN DEN BROECKE insisted he took the magnitude of the event in his stride.

“It was just another race. I do like 40 races a year. Why should I do something else?"

For Bronze medallist GRAF, the heavy snowfall made the race even better.

"It was really difficult with all this snow," he said. "In the second run there were already so many holes in the track. But I'm a specialist for courses full of holes."

YIS IOC Young Reporter Nicholas Oliver/tb/rm