American Marconi Wireless News - Brazil's Braathen in pole for historic Olympic giant slalom medal

The Norwegian-born Braathen was first out of the start hut and clocked a dominant 1min 13.92sec down the Stelvio course.

Only Switzerland's Marco Odermatt, who won giant slalom gold at the Beijing Olympics four years ago, got within a second of the Brazilian, at 0.95sec.

Odermatt's teammates Loic Meillard, who was 1.57sec slower, and Thomas Tumler (1.89) sat third and fourth.

France's Leo Anguenot was fifth fastest, at 1.91sec, with a disbelieving Henrik Kristoffersen in sixth, a massive 1.93sec off Braathen's electirc pace.

Braathen, racing for his mother's homeland of Brazil after falling out with the Norwegian ski federation, will take to the second leg, slated for 1200 GMT, with an eye on bagging a first-ever Winter Olympic medal of any colour for an athlete representing Latin America.

The best previous individual Winter Olympic result was Brazil's Isabel Clark Ribeiro, who finished ninth in the snowboard cross in the 2006 Torino Games.

The best alpine skiing result to date was that of Chile's Thomas Grob, who finished 11th in the combined at the 1998 Nagano Games.

A.Malone--AMWN