Janica Kostelic CRO

Born January 5th - 1982, Zagreb

Olympics: 1st Combined, Giant Slalom, Slalom, 2nd Super-G 2002 Salt Lake City
FIS Worlds: 1st Combined, Slalom 2003, 1st Combined 2005
World Cup: 11th 1999, 22nd 2000, 1st 2001, 14th 2002, 1st 2003
World Cup wins: 19 - 16 Slaloms, 3 Combined

Only a few champions have won six gold medals or more at Olympics or World Championships in their career - the latest member of that exclusive club is Croatia's superstar Janica Kostelic, who clinched the combined title at the 2005 FIS World Championships. It's quite a wonderful triumph for the 23-year-old athlete from Zagreb, who achieved a superb comeback this season after her annoying health problems from last year. In Aspen, she won the first World Cup slalom of the season more than five hundred days after her last race at the 2003 Finals at Lillehammer. Last month, she even reached her first downhill podium in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and she is battling for her third Overall World Cup crown against the defending champion Anja Paerson.

Almost everything is remarkable about Janica Kostelic, who celebrated her first World Cup victory less than two weeks after turning 17 as she captured a combined in St Anton. Within a few years, the Croatian Superstar established impressive new records, including winning eight consecutive slaloms in 2000/2001 and being the first female skier to clinch three Olympic gold medals at the same Winter Games!
Yet the double Overall World Cup and FIS World Champion must also be admired for the amazing comebacks she achieved in several occasions, making her a true sport phenomenon as well as a remarkable personality and an intriguing champion!
She is really unique - because her talent, her incredible determination, her courage and her staff. Not to mention that she grew-up in a country without alpine traditions - yet over 150'000 people gathered on its main square in February 2002 after her Olympic triumphs from Salt Lake City.

First race at 16

In January 1998, she was only 16 when she competed for the first time in a World Cup race at Cortina d'Ampezzo - a month before the Nagano Olympics. She raced in all events in Japan, finishing a promising 8th in combined.
Eight months later, she already scored her first World Cup points at Soelden and she reached her first podium three weeks later in Park City when she was 3rd in her very first World Cup slalom. She wore bib # 53 that day!
It was the beginning of an astonishing outburst. In November 1999, she won two consecutive slaloms in France and Italy and she was leading the Overall World Cup standings in mid December when she got seriously injured during a dramatic crash while training downhill at St Moritz. She severely damaged most of the ligaments in her right knee in that accident and underwent a gruelling surgery in Basle, Switzerland, where she was transported. For a while, many were afraid that her career was over.

Fortunately, the mostly relaxed “Wondergirl” from Zagreb is both a talented athlete and a fighter. Working hard with excellent re-education specialists in Switzerland, Croatia and France, she was able to find back her form and her momentum at the beginning of the summer.
Her first goal at that point was to slowly recover her form and remain in good health for some time. But Janica Kostelic seems to come from another planet - after a smooth start in Soelden, she won her comeback slalom at Park City - the first of an impressive series of eight slalom victories which helped her to conquer the Overall World Cup title during the Finals at Are in March 2001!

Yet her highlight didn't last long - she underwent three new knee surgeries in the off-season and she was not in her best shape when she finally returned on the circuit in December 2001. Another crash in a giant slalom in Val d'Isère and strong pains at her back slowed her down once more and she had to wait the slalom of Berchtesgaden, end of January 2002, to reach her first podium of the winter in a slalom.
She decided afterwards to skip the races at Are and rest in Croatia at the Adriatic coast. There she started to focus on the Olympics - since her younger age, her greatest dream was to win an Olympic medal, the first for her country at the Winter Games.

3 Olympic golds

She reached much more! She started with a superb gold medal won in combined thanks to an aggressive run on the demanding downhill course. A few days later, she missed another gold in the Super-G by only 5/100 of a second but she was quite proud about her first podium in a speed event.
In the technical races, she was out of reach for her rivals - especially in the giant slalom in which she beat Sweden's Anja Paerson by 1,32 seconds! She dominated again her rivals at Deer Valley in the slalom won ahead of France's Laure Pequegnot, the 2002 slalom World Cup champion while Anja Paerson was 3rd.
Yet she remained motivated for the Finals and she won the last slalom at Flachau despite a tough crash in a Super-G a few days before, while she was once more fighting for a top-3 place in that event.

During the following season, she was able to repeat her Overall World Cup victory and to capture her first gold medals at World Championships, yet she was continuously plagued by strong pains at her knee which she operated several times after the season. She couldn't compete in the Opening Giant Slalom race in Soelden and she found out afterwards that she suffered an even more serious illness. Doctors discovered in November that her thyroid wasn't functioning correctly and she had to skip the entire season after undergoing surgery in the beginning of 2004. She was not allowed to ski for a long time - until the middle of the spring. Starting smoothly, she moved up step by step and slowly found back part of her form later on. In Soelden, she reached an unexpected and very positive 8th place in the Opening giant slalom after clocking the 4th best time in the first run. It was her best ever finish in that demanding competition. It was definitely a very promising season start for her!
Janica's achievements are more than impressive considering the hard moments she went through in her life. She overcame also difficult moments when she was younger, in a region plagued by civil war and economical difficulties.

Her father Ante, a former international handball player and trainer, is also a great ski fan. In the past, he liked to ski with his kids at Sljeme, near Zagreb. Janica had fun playing and competing with her older brother, Ivica, and soon she decided to be a ski racer. Her athletic skills and her great coordination could have led her to become an excellent tennis or basketball player, but she was more attracted by the snow fields.

Janica trained all the time with her family, skiing mostly on the Austrian glaciers in summertime.
Ante worked hard to get enough money to cover the training and transportation expenses, including scuba diving in Dalmatia's sea to catch fish sold afterwards to local restaurants. More than once, Ante and his kids slept in a tent or in their Lada car at Hinterdux where they mostly trained in summer.

Their road to the summits was rough and long but it was worth it!