Maze in pole position, violinist Mae survives slalom

Slovenian alpine skier Tina Maze established an iron grip on the Olympic women's giant slalom today as Thai violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae -- sprinkling stardust on the soggy slopes -- limped in last.
Maze, hunting her second gold at the Sochi Games after winning the blue riband downhill, was first out of the start gate and made the most of a largely unrutted piste to lead by more than half a second.
Only four racers got within a second of Maze's time of 1min 17.88sec down the first run -- Sweden's Jessica Lindell-Vikarby, Italian Nadia Fanchini, Austria's recently crowned super-G gold medallist Anna Fenninger and American teenager Mikaela Shiffrin.

Maze tied with Dominique Gisin for gold in last week's downhill, and the 30-year-old Slovenian showed all her giant slalom prowess in rainy, warm conditions on the Rosa Khutor course.
At the other end of the field, Vanessa Mae, the Singapore-born British former child prodigy, who competes under her birth father's surname Vanakorn after taking Thai citizenship, was 74th and slowest, nearly 27sec behind Maze.
But the 35-year-old who has worldwide record sales in excess of 10 million, remained upbeat.
"I expected to be last but at the end of the day the Olympics is a great opportunity," she said. "I think I'm going to make a second run so it was really cool."

"I nearly crashed three times, but I made it down and that was the main thing," she added. "Just the experience of being here is amazing. I was worried I was going to get lost (on the course), but I just about managed it.