Queen of Croatia Delivers Third Gold

Janica Kostelic of Croatia plays with her gold medals after winning the women's slalom competition at the Alpine skiing World Championships in Santa Caterina, February 11, 2005. Kostelic of Croatia won the women's slalom at the world championships on Friday in a provisional combined time of one minute 47.98 seconds. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich 1

Janica Kostelic of Croatia shows her three gold medals she won at the World Alpine Ski Championships, in Santa Caterina Valfurva, Italy, Friday. (AP/Luca Bruno)

2/12/2005] - Queen of Croatia Delivers Third Gold
Janica Kostelic delivered a near flawless run on a course set by her father, Ante, and outskied Tanja Poutiainen to take the gold medal last night in slalom. With this, her third while in Bormio, she outdid even her last performance at the St. Moritz Worlds when she took gold in both slalom and combined. The 23-year old has amassed victories in 20 World Cup races and now has a total of nine medals between two World Championships and one Olympic Games, with only one of those medals being a silver. This queen of Croatian skiing clearly has a passion for all that is golden.

Tanja Poutiainen of Finland, the current overall World Cup leader, won the first slalom run but could not hold off the Kostelic attack brought on for the second run. The Finn was satisfied with her performance and was quoted as saying, "I think I really won the silver medal today rather than losing the gold one. It was really not easy, I was glad to make it to the finish." Poutiainen struggled on top but re-grouped for the bottom part of the course to maintain her spot on the podium.

Celebrating her 20th birthday on race day, Sarka Zahrobska from the Czech Republic found that the surprise awaiting her after blowing out the cake candles was a bronze medal. This is the first medal for the Czechs, and although Zahrobska has never been on a World Cup podium prior to yesterday, she has placed among the top ten on nine different occasions.

For the American squad, Resi Stiegler, Sarah Schleper, and Julia Mancuso finished 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively. With her now signature kitty ears adorning her helmet, young Stiegler was the strongest among the three and actually had a second run of 56.30 that beat the top three finishers. Had her first run not been sluggish and affected, like many skiers, by illness, Resi may have seen the view from the podium.


http://www.fantaski.it/ol/eng/home/leggonews.asp?id=244