Host nation Italy is celebrating its first gold medal of the Turin Winter Olympics, after Armin Zoeggeler won the luge singles title Sunday evening.
"The Gold Spaceship," read a headline in sports daily Corriere dello Sport.
"Armin's Gold - A Luge Like A Ferrari," declared the front page of Milan-based newspaper Corriere della Sera, referring both to Zoeggeler's speed and his love for the Ferrari Formula One team.
Driver Michael Schumacher is one of Zoeggeler's idols.
The 32-year-old Carabiniere police officer, nicknamed 'the Cannibal' for his ability to eat up the competition, successfully defended the crown he won four years ago in Salt Lake City with four faultless runs.
In doing so, he became the first Italian to win medals at four different editions of the Winter Games. Zoeggeler also picked up a bronze medal at his Olympic debut at Lillehammer 1994, when he was 20, and took silver at Nagano in 1998.
"I'm really happy because Zoeggeler is a Ferrari supporter, he practises a sport I love and he's an athlete who knows how to take risks," said Ferrari and Fiat President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.
"My hope is that there will be other medals. After the marvellous opening ceremony, this victory is a good omen for the Games and for Italy."
"It's a great boost for the whole Azzurri team," added
Mario Pescante, the Culture Ministry undersecretary with the sport portfolio and Turin Winter Games supervisor.
"Winning two golds is extraordinary and the Olympics are at home - winning here is extraordinary," said Zoeggeler. But the quiet father of two from a German-speaking minority in the northern region of Alto Adige remained a humble winner:
"Everyone told me that I'm the best, I read it in the newspapers, but I'd never say a sentence like that. What I can say is that it was the hardest race of my life...
"It was a very difficult medal to get because everyone expected me to win and the pressure was very high."
He admitted though that he got a kick out of appearing on the front pages of the newspapers with pride of place, on top of the Serie A news - a rarity in this soccer-crazy country. "It's so nice to have the headline on the front page above that of Juventus (which beat Inter Milan 1-2)," he said.
"It's easier to win a gold medal than it is to get on the front page of the newspapers."
Zoeggeler dedicated his feat to his family and to a fellow Carabiniere who was killed in a shoot-out in Ferrara on Sunday. Another Carabiniere Winter Olympian, Pietro Piller Cottrer, dedicated the bronze medal he won Sunday in the men's 30km cross-country skiing pursuit to the dead officer too.
Zoeggeler paid his respects to the late Fiat car king Gianni Agnelli on Monday, spending ten minutes in the family crypt outside Turin.
Zoeggeler's triumph, which earned him 130,000 euros in prize money from the Italian Olympic Committee, comes after he recently secured his fifth World Cup title.
He has also been crowned World Champion on five occasions - 1995, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005.
