Odermatt was among the pre-event favourites at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Centre, but had failed to finish the super-G contest earlier in the week.

Today the Swiss was aided by rivals failing to finish as several crashed out in the first round, but Odermatt also had to overcome some of the most challenging snow conditions.

Odermatt's compatriots Justin Murisier and Loïc Meillard failed to finish, as did Norwegians Rasmus Windingstad and Atle Lie McGrath, Germany's Alexander Schmid and American Ryan Cochran-Siegle, who won the super-G silver medal earlier in the Games.

Odermatt's first-run time of 1miin 2.93sec was the fastest of the day, and gave him an advantage of 0.04sec over Austria's Stefan Brennsteiner.

Brennsteiner made a huge mistake in round two which dropped him down to 27th.

Luca de Aliprandini of Italy and Manuel Feller from Austria were both in the top 10 at the halfway stage but failed to finish, as did Norway's Lucas Braathen after a 12th-ranked opening run.

Of the 89 skiers, only 46 finished both runs as heavy snow produced poor visibility, particularly in the first run.

Both France's Alexis Pinturault and Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway looked in contention for a medal after run one, but made costly mistakes in the second round, meaning they ended in fifth and eighth, respectively.

Instead it was Žan Kranjec of Slovenia, who posted the fastest time in the second round by a considerable margin, who ended up being Odermatt's biggest challenger.

A 1:05.83 second run propelled Kranjec into the lead with only Odermatt left to ski.

The Swiss ate into much of his 0.78sec advantage, but still produced the second-best time of round two - 1:06.42 - to win the race and a maiden Olympic medal.

Mathieu Faivre of France did not have a clean second run, but held onto the bronze medal in front of American River Radamus and the French pair of Thibaut Favrot and Pinturault.

Pinturault and Favrot finished in a tie for fifth place.

Odermatt admitted the longer break between runs - caused by the worsening conditions - was not easy, but insisted he was able to concentrate when it mattered.

"It wasn't easy but I know [this type of] situation from World Cups," Odermatt said.

"So I just tried to relax between the two runs, recover a little bit, then as soon as I got to the start, I started to focus again, got in my flow and in the start gate you just have to think about skiing."

This season Odermatt has won three giant slalom World Cup races.

The 24-year-old leads both the discipline standings and the overall World Cup standings.