| Ivica Kostelić | |
|---|---|
Kostelić in October 2010 |
|
| Personal information | |
| Born | November 23, 1979 Zagreb, Croatia |
| Height | 1.82 m (6 ft 0 in) [1] |
| Professional information | |
| Club | Ski club Zagreb [1] |
| Skis | Fischer [1] |
| World Cup | |
| Wins | 20 [2] |
| Additional podiums | 25 [2] |
| Total podiums | 45 [2] |
| Updated on December 21, 2011. | |
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men’s alpine skiing | ||
| Competitor for Croatia | ||
| Olympic Games | ||
| Silver | 2010 Vancouver | Super Combined |
| Silver | 2010 Vancouver | Slalom |
| Silver | 2006 Turin | Combined |
| World Championships | ||
| Gold | 2003 St. Moritz | Slalom |
| Bronze | 2011 Garmisch | Super-G |
Ivica Kostelić (Croatian pronunciation: [ˈiʋitsa ˈkɔstɛlitɕ]; born November 23, 1979) is an alpine ski racer from Zagreb, Croatia. He won the world championship in slalom in 2003 and three Olympic silver medals in slalom (2010) and combined (2006 and 2010), along with the overall World Cup title in 2011 and 20 World Cup races (as of 21 December 2011) during his career. He specializes in slalom and combined, but is also one of the few alpine World Cup ski racers able to score points in all disciplines. He is the elder brother of Janica Kostelić, the winner of three overall World Cup titles and four Olympic gold medals before her early retirement due to injuries.
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After considerable success in junior competitions, Kostelić's World Cup career has alternated between triumph and injury. His main accomplishments include a World Championship gold medal in slalom in 2003, Olympic silver medal in slalom in Vancouver in 2010, and Olympic silver medals in combined in 2006 (traditional combined) and 2010 (super combined), along with 18 World Cup race victories during his career and the overall World Cup title in 2011. He won the slalom World Cup title in 2002 and 2011, and the combined World Cup title in 2011. Since 2008, he has finished among the top six in the overall World Cup standings each season (2008: sixth; 2009: fourth; 2010: fifth; 2011: first). He has also scored points in all disciplines each of those seasons, and his best race results (as of March 2011) are a seventh place in downhill, a second place in giant slalom, and victories in all other disciplines (11 in slalom, 1 in parallel-slalom, 2 in combined, 3 in super combined, and 1 in Super G).
Kostelić made his first World Cup start in October 1998 in Sölden, Austria, at the age of 18, but failed to qualify for a second run.[3] He did not finish any of his first 11 World Cup races over 3 seasons, until finally scoring World Cup points for the first time in Sestriere, Italy, in December 2000. His first three seasons on the World Cup all ended prematurely due to injuries, failing to make it past December or January each season. His big breakthrough came during the 2002 season, when he shockingly won the slalom at Aspen, Colorado, in November 2001 starting from the 64th bib number, his first finish higher than 21st place in any World Cup race. He won two more slaloms that season, and had three additional podiums (top 3), enough to clinch the slalom season title over Bode Miller while avoiding season-ending injury for the first time in his career.
Kostelić would continue his success during the next season, winning three more slalom races by mid-season, and adding a gold medal in slalom in February at the 2003 World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. He would narrowly miss repeating his slalom title, falling to second place as Kalle Palander won four consecutive slaloms in late season to clinch the globe. He would go on to win another slalom race during the 2003–2004 season, the 7th win of his career, before injuries again ended his season prematurely in January. He would return to World Cup competition in time for the start of the 2004–2005 season, but would fail to finish any of his first 7 races that year. Despite a pair of podiums later that season and occasional top-10 finishes, he would not win another World Cup race for nearly three years.
Kostelić began his career as a technical specialist, racing only slalom and GS (with an occasional Super G), but started to ski the speed events including downhill during the 2006 season, primarily in order to compete in the new format of super combined, which consists of single runs of downhill and slalom. His broadened portfolio brought quick dividends, with a silver medal in the combined (a traditional combined with a single downhill and two runs of slalom) at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, in February. He would follow that success during the 2007 World Cup season with a win in the super combined in Reiteralm, Austria, in December 2006, his eighth World Cup win and first other than slalom.
Starting with the 2008 season, Kostelić joined the select group of World Cup racers who compete in all races. Although he failed to win any World Cup races during the 2008 season, he finished second 4 times and third twice in slalom and super combined races, and for the first time scored points in all disciplines. He would finish second in the combined standings and sixth in the overall. The next season brought another win in slalom, along with three more second places (including in GS for his first time) and a pair of thirds, as he moved up to fourth in the overall standings while again taking second in the slalom standings. Success in all disciplines continued in the 2010 season, with two more World Cup wins in slalom and combined (for a total of 11 in his career) along with a second in Super G, his first podium in a speed event. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, he won a pair of silver medals, in slalom and combined.
Kostelić's skiing would reach another level during the 2011 season. Following a third in the season-opening slalom in November, however, he suffered a string of mediocre finishes outside the top-10 for the rest of 2010. Then he opened the New Year with a victory in the first-ever Munich City Event parallel slalom on January 2, and took second place four days later in the slalom in his hometown of Zagreb. He followed that up with three more wins over the next two weeks in slalom and super combined at Adelboden and Wengen, Switzerland, to take the lead in the overall World Cup standings for the first time. At the Hahnenkamm races in Kitzbühel, Austria, he had victories in Super-G and combined, plus a second place in slalom, which opened a gap of more than 400 points over his nearest competitors in the overall ranking. A week later, he won the super combined in Chamonix, France, his third straight win in combined and clinching the combined title for the season with one race still remaining.[4] It was his seventh victory of January 2011, the most by any alpine ski racer in a single calendar month in World Cup history, and he scored points in all 14 World Cup races held in January, including two seconds and two fifths along with top-30 finishes in all three downhills, for a total of 999 points in January alone.
After the stunning success of January, Kostelić's results tailed off considerably and he would fail to finish higher than fifth in any of the remaining 10 World Cup races on the season. In February, Kostelić won a bronze medal in super G at the 2011 World Championships in Garmisch, but finished only 8th and 13th in the slalom and giant slalom. He chose not to race the World Championships downhill or the super combined (in which he was the clear favorite to win the gold medal) in order to avoid injury on the extremely icy course.[5] On March 12, five races before the end of the season, he clinched his first overall World Cup title,[6] and he would clinch the slalom title at the final race in Lenzerheide, Switzerland on March 19, despite finishing out of the points that day.[7] Kostelić would win a total of three crystal globes for the 2011 season including the overall, slalom, and combined titles.
Ivica Kostelić was born and raised in Zagreb. His parents, Ante and Marica, are former elite team handball players. They taught Ivica and his sister Janica (who is two years younger) to ski on the nearby hill Sljeme (now the site of the annual Snow Queen Trophy World Cup races).[8] Ante Kostelić has remained their primary ski coach throughout their careers, and is the head coach of the Croatian ski team.[9]
Kostelić was formerly in a relationship with American skier Caroline Lalive before they reportedly broke up in 2005. Since 2006 Kostelić has been dating Elin Arnarsdottir, a retired ski racer from Iceland.[10][11]
In 2006 Kostelić passed the entrance exam at the University of Zagreb to become a part-time undergraduate student of history.[12]
In January 2003, after winning the slalom at Kranjska Gora, Kostelić told the reporters that before the race he had felt "powerful, all-conquering, like a German soldier ready for battle in 1941", in reference to the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union.[13] Although the Croatian media had largely ignored the statement, the weekly tabloid Nacional picked up the story and published an article featuring previously unreleased statements made by Kostelić from an interview that he gave to the weekly in May 2002. According to Nacional Kostelić said that he was "fascinated" with the scale of the World War II Luftwaffe attack on Britain and gave an opinion on the differences between national socialism and communism saying that "Nationalism was still a healthy system for someone who was ambitious. In communism, we weren’t permitted to be ambitious, and both systems were totalitarian."[14]
His remarks were interpreted by the weekly as a sign of far right political leanings and the story attracted attention from international press.[15] Kostelić then issued a statement claiming that the sentences published by Nacional were taken out of context and that they were made in informal conversation conducted after the formal interview, and added that "my heart is neither left- nor right-oriented, only towards sports, and my mind is only on skiing".[13]
Other journalists had dismissed his original statement as nothing more than a badly chosen metaphor due to the fact that both Ivica and his father Ante are avid World War II buffs.[13] Since 2002 Ante Kostelić owns a publishing house which published the Croatian edition of the award-winning book Stalingrad by Antony Beevor. In April 2010 the company also published a book (Waffen-SS, Mračne Sile Zločinačke Politike - Waffen-SS, Dark Forces of Evil Politics) about the Waffen-SS which Ante Kostelić had edited.[16]
| Season | Discipline |
|---|---|
| 2002 | Slalom |
| 2011 | Overall |
| Combined | |
| Slalom |
20 victories: 13 slalom, 5 combined (3 super combined, 2 traditional), 1 parallel slalom, 1 Super G
| Season | Date | Location | Discipline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 25 Nov 2001 | Aspen, USA | Slalom |
| 13 Jan 2002 | Wengen, Switzerland | Slalom | |
| 09 Mar 2002 | Flachau, Austria | Slalom | |
| 2003 | 16 Dec 2002 | Sestriere, Italy | Slalom |
| 05 Jan 2003 | Kranjska Gora, Slovenia | Slalom | |
| 12 Jan 2003 | Bormio, Italy | Slalom | |
| 2004 | 15 Dec 2003 | Madonna di Campiglio, Italy | Slalom |
| 2007 | 10 Dec 2006 | Reiteralm, Austria | Super combined |
| 2009 | 22 Dec 2008 | Alta Badia, Italy | Slalom |
| 2010 | 17 Jan 2010 | Wengen, Switzerland | Slalom |
| 24 Jan 2010 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Combined | |
| 2011 | 02 Jan 2011 | Munich, Germany | Parallel slalom |
| 09 Jan 2011 | Adelboden, Switzerland | Slalom | |
| 14 Jan 2011 | Wengen, Switzerland | Super combined | |
| 16 Jan 2011 | Slalom | ||
| 21 Jan 2011 | Kitzbühel, Austria | Super G | |
| 23 Jan 2011 | Combined | ||
| 30 Jan 2011 | Chamonix, France | Super combined | |
| 2012 | 08 Dec 2011 | Beaver Creek, USA | Slalom |
| 21 Dec 2011 | Flachau, Austria | Slalom |
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