NEWS FEATURE Svindal still going strong with gold in twilight of his career By Barry Whelan, dpa

Aksel Lund Svindal has come back stronger than ever from injury to win a first men‘s downhill gold for Norway. His second Olympic gold medal may not be his last in Pyeongchang, but the Games almost certainly will be.Pyeongchang, South Korea (dpa) - Aksel Lund Svindal has reached the pinnacle for a downhill skier with an Olympic gold medal in alpine skiing‘s blue riband event at an age when others have already hung up their ski boots.At 35, he has given Norway a first-ever men‘s downhill Olympic gold - the only gold they had missing - and become alpine skiing‘s oldest-ever Olympic winner in a Norwegian triumph in Jongseon, with team-mate Kjetil Jansrud taking silver.Svindal‘s gold is his fourth medal at the Olympics and follows a gold in super-g at Vancouver in 2010 when he also won silver in the downhill. It is also some recompense for just missing out on a downhill medal in Sochi four years ago when he finished fourth.His five world championship wins also includes two downhill golds, while he has 35 victories in the World Cup, and probably still counting."World Cup wins, I‘ve been there a few times and know how that feels, but this is different," he said soon after clinching victory with an aggressive run.Svindal had already bettered world champion Beat Feuz‘s time, the Swiss World Cup leader having to settle for bronze. He then watched nervously as team-mate Jansrud hurtled down with faster times until a slight mistake in the lower part of the course gave Svindal victory by 0.12 seconds.Svindal has become the first Olympic skier to win both men‘s speed events, in yet another of the statistics in skiing that each victory seems to bring up - but that‘s all fairly irrelevant to Svindal."When you cross the finish line and you see that you‘ve had a good race and you‘re in the medals or even for the gold, you don‘t think too much about the history books," he said."It‘s emotional, and being in the Olympics and competing for gold and being able to get it, for me at least those feelings are much stronger than any history ever written."Svindal, like most alpine skiers, has had his fair share of bad injuries, and can perhaps count himself lucky he can still compete at the top.One of the worst was in November 2007, when during training for the Birds of Prey downhill race in Beaver Creek, Colorado, he crashed into a safety fence, suffering fractures to facial bones and a large cut to his groin and abdominal area.He did not compete in the 2014/15 World Cup season after an Achilles tendon injury suffered playing football, although he competed in the world championship. In January 2016 he had a season-ending knee injury in Kitzbuehel and also ended the 2016/17 season early because of a knee problem.Svindal now has little time to celebrate his downhill gold, for he is back in action in Friday‘s super-g in what will almost certainly be his last Olympics. He can‘t imagine being in Beijing four years from now at the age of 39."I guess this is the beginning of the end somehow, definitely my last Olympics," he said. "Nothing is 100 per cent sure, but that‘s very, very close to being 100 per cent sure."