4th place for Janica Kostelic

Cortina d'Ampezzo, Jan.16h - Janica Kostelic missed by only 3/100 of a second her consecutive podium in downhill in the fourth and last speed race held today on the Olimpia-Tofana course at Cortina d'Ampezzo. She came in 4th in that last Italian competition, just behind Germany's specialist Hilde Gerg.

Austria's Michaela Dorfmeister won her first race in Cortina beating by over a second her team-mate Renate Goetschl. Yet Renate took over the lead in the Overall World Cup standings, in which she is now 9 points ahead of Janica and 86 points ahead of Dorfmeister.
Anja Paerson, an excellent 5th in that race, her best result in downhill, is now 4th in the Overall standings ex aequo with Finland's Tanja Poutiainen with 706 points - 92 behind the leader. They should be able to improve her position in the coming three technical events planned this week in Zagreb and Maribor.

Janica, who moved up to 6th place in the downhill World Cup standings, was pleased by her performance. “I had again a lot of fun to ski today,” she said. “I tried to achieve the same race than yesterday, but I made a couple of extra mistakes this time. I wasn't that stable today. But I think that beside this my run was pretty OK!”
“I was all the way down here. I wasn't really clean on the top either in the top turns. It's funny with Hilde Gerg because we are always so close! That's not so bad to be just behind such a great racer!”

Take some rest

“Some girls said that's it was a little bit more difficult today, so I should do like everyone and say the same. But I'm not really convinced about this fact!”
“If I have to make a little summary on my speed events season so far, I can only be satisfied with what is happening to me so far. I'm in the otp-10 in the downhill standings, which is a nice position. I really enjoy skiing in downhill. It's not going that well in SG for the moment, I still have a couple of technical things to fix, but I think that this won't be so much of a problem, and it won't take long.”
“I was very happy to be racing again here, it's always a pleasure to come to this place. But I have to say that I'm pretty excited about next week because we have the race in Sljeme, and that will be such a great nice rendez-vous! I'm still training tomorrow, and I will go back home after that. Maybe take some rest, which will be good because my cold is not getting any better, I could hardly breath actually.”

Manuèle LANG