Zoeggeler delighted the home fans

The local favourite clocked up a combined time of three minutes, 26.088 seconds for his four runs.

Russia's Albert Demtschenko trailed by just 0.110 seconds to win silver, with Latvian Martin Rubenis in third.

US-born Adam Rosen performed magnificently to be the leading Briton in 16th, while Mark Hatton was 35th after rolling over on his third run.

Hatton, 32, recovered with a reasonable fourth run but revealed he was "gutted" after being placed last out of those who finished.

"It's not the way I planned - I lost a lot at the top of my second run and went 100% in my third, but if you race that way you pay the price," he said.

There was no way I was going to let that sled get away from me - I've given four years of my life to this Mark Hatton

Zoeggeler was delighted to have won Italy's first gold medal of the Games.

"I knew I needed to stay really focused and I did because if you make a mistake everything is finished," he said.

"This was the most difficult medal of my career because there was a lot of pressure on me. I still don't believe I won the medal."

German Georg Hackl, a medal winner in all five of his previous Olympic campaigns, will retire after the Games and could only finish seventh.