Janica Kostelić Croatian pronunciation: ; born January 5, 1982 is a retired alpine ski racer from Croatia. She is the only woman to win four gold medals in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics (in 2002 and 2006), and the only woman to win three alpine skiing gold medals in one Olympics (2002).
Kostelić was the World Cup overall champion in 2001, 2003, and 2006. On January 15, 2006, Kostelić became only the third woman in World Cup history (after Swede Pernilla Wiberg and Austrian Petra Kronberger) to win World Cup races in all of the sport's five disciplines. On February 5, 2006 Kostelić became the second female skier (after Petra Kronberger) to win all five disciplines in one season. She also holds the record for the highest number of points in one season (1970 in 2005-2006). Kostelić is winner of five World Championships gold medals and three Overall Alpine Skiing World Cup titles. She has won a total of 30 World cup races.
Contents
* 1 Career
o 1.1 2002 Winter Olympics
o 1.2 Later career
* 2 World Cup victories
o 2.1 Season titles
o 2.2 Individual victories
* 3 See also
* 4 External links
Career
Kostelić was born in Zagreb, Croatia, into a winter sports family: her father Ante is also her trainer and her older brother Ivica Kostelić is a renowned ski racer in his own right, the 2011 overall World Cup champion. She first started skiing at the age of three and began training at nine years old. She quickly became successful and won several junior competitions.
At the age of 16, Kostelić was selected for the Croatian team for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Her best result was 8th place in the combined. She competed in all five disciplines. She won her first World Cup slalom in December 1999. Kostelić then suffered knee ligament damage which kept her out of competition until late 2000. She won the World Cup overall title that 2001 season with eight further victories.
2002 Winter Olympics
In the 2002 Winter Olympics she won three gold medals and a silver in alpine skiing disciplines, the first Winter Olympic medals ever for an athlete from Croatia. No other female alpine racer has ever won four medals or three gold medals at a single Olympics.
Kostelić chose not to compete in the Downhill and concentrated on the Combined. She performed well in the downhill run and then won the gold medal after the slalom. She then won a silver medal in the Super-G, just behind Daniela Ceccarelli. The next race was the Slalom, in which Kostelić won her second gold medal, narrowly beating Laure Péquegnot. Her final victory was in the Giant Slalom, a substantial 1.32 seconds ahead of silver medalist Anja Pärson.
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
Janica Kostelic
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