Three-time Olympic champion Janica Kostelic of Croatia has thrown down the gauntlet in the women's alpine skiing...
Three-time Olympic champion Janica Kostelic of
Kostelic won the women's slalom in Osterschwang on Sunday, the final World Cup race before the February 10-26 Torino Winter Games.
With her victory she became only the second woman after Petra Kronberger of Austria in 1991 to win a World Cup "grand slam" - victories in all five disciplines in one season: downhill, Super-G, giant slalom, slalom and combined.
After talks with her father and coach Ante Kostelic, and national team director Vedran Pavlek, Kostelic has opted, fitness permitting, to turn out in all five events here.
"If Janica is in optimal form ... her competing in all those disciplines shouldn't be doubtful," it was announced on her official website, www.janica.hr
Her battle for supremacy with Sweden's Anja Paerson, the reigning World Cup champion - and also coached by her father, promises to be one of the most scintillating of the Games.
The stars of the women's World Cup circuit dominated last year's world championships in Bormio and both have been showing great form this season as the Games approach.
Kostelic, who dominated the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 by winning three golds in the combined, slalom and giant slalom, currently leads the overall World Cup standings ahead of fit-again Austrian Michaela Dorfmeister, with Paerson in third place.
Kostelic only recently turned 24 years old and has the makings of a ski legend. Not bad for a skier who, following a training accident in 1999 which smashed her right knee and led to 11 operations, was told her career was finished.
Paerson, however, will be a hard nut to crack.
The Swedish powerhouse only took a silver and a bronze at Salt Lake Olympics four years ago, and this season has been pulling out all the stops to make sure she is on top form in
The 24-year-old also has the makings of an alpine legend, and this season is only slightly behind Kostelic in terms of outright success, although Paerson has suffered slightly from irregularity having failed to finish five World Cup races and been disqualified from the super-G at Bad Kleinkirchheim.
Paerson said on her website www.anjapaerson.com: "I am very much looking forward to the Games. My form and equipment feels good!
"I am anxious to get started and I hope you cross your fingers when its time for race day!" she said in her blog entry.
Both racers also have some local knowledge, Kostelic having won the World Cup combined at San Sicario Fraiteve in February 2005 and Paerson notching up wins in the Super-G and downhill at the same event.
But the duo will be pushed hard by the likes of American Lindsey Kildow, who is currently sixth overall in the World Cup and second in the downhill standings.
Veteran Austrian downhill specialist Dorfmeister, a silver medallist in the 1998 Nagano Games and who at 32 years of age will be the oldest skier in the downhill, can never be ruled out.
And compatriot Alexandra Meissnitzer is also holding her own in the World Cup this season with a fourth place overall and fourth in the downhill which widens the 32-year-old's scope for a medal.
AFP
