He had raced at the World Alpine Ski Championships almost 9,000 kilometres away in St Moritz three days ago. 

The 18-year-old, a silver medallist at last year's Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, finished 42nd in the giant slalom and 58th in the slalom in the Swiss resort.

Koyama was in a class of his own here. 

He produced the quickest run of the day first time down on the 1972 Winter Olympic course to stop the clock at 1min 08.00sec.

His second was time of 1:09.51 was marginally slower but enough to ensure a winning total of 2:17.51.

The silver medal went to South Korea's Kim Hyeon-tae almost two seconds behind in 2:19.37. 

Kim's team-mate Park Je-yun produced the second fastest opening run of 1:08.29, but was disqualified for a false start in the second.

The bronze medal was eventually secured by Hideyuki Narita of Japan, with 2:20.24.

It came in a dramatic competition as skiers struggled to adapt to soft snow conditions.

They had also not been able to practice on the course due to the cancellation of official training yesterday as weather conditions deteriorated.

South Korea's leading hope, Kyung Sung-hyun, was among those to crash out.

A total of 30 of the 44 starters managed to complete the competition.

This included Yohan Goncalves Goutt, the first ever Winter Asian Games participant from East Timor, a creditable 14th in 2:34.42.