Ski jumping-Vogt wins first-ever women`s gold

Rosa Khutor: Carina Vogt of Germany made history on Tuesday when she won the women`s first ever Olympic ski jumping competition, marking the triumphant end of a 13-year fight by female athletes to take part in the Games.

The 22-year-old German world number two collapsed to the snow in tears when she the scoreboard showed that her second jump of 97.5 metres, the last of the competition, had been just enough to beat Austrian veteran Daniela Iraschko-Stolz. The 30-year-old had landed a monster jump of 104.5 metres - the longest of the night - in the second round to move up from fifth place into the provisional lead. Vogt, who has never won a World Cup jumping event, ended the night with 247.4 points. Iraschko-Stolz, who played a major part in the campaign to have women jumpers included in the Games, amassed 246.2 for silver. In a major surprise, 18-year-old Coline Mattel of France took the bronze with 245.2 points, edging out runaway world number one and favourite Sara Takanashi of Japan. Takanashi, 17, had been third after the first round. World Champion Sarah Hendrickson of the United States, who made the Games despite suffering a bad knee injury last August, looked tentative and put in two mediocre efforts to end in 21st place of the 30 competitors. Women had pressed the International Olympic Committee since 1998 to be allowed to take part, even going to court to challenge their exclusion from the 2010 Vancouver Games, but were repeatedly rejected on the grounds there were not enough good female jumpers. The IOC announced in 2011 that women could take part in Sochi, but only on the normal hill.