26 JAN 2001 > Women's Slalom
Kostelic Sets New Slalom Record
Slalom Results

Janica Kostelic just keeps on winning. At Ofterschwang, the Croatian teenager gave another impressive performance as she won her seventh consecutive slalom and her ninth in the last two years.

In one of the most difficult gate races of the season due of the bad snow conditions, Kostelic again beat her nearest rival, American Kristina Koznick, by 1.62 second. Switzerland's Sonja Nef finished 3rd only a hundredth of second ahead of Sarah Schleper who again was fastest in the second round. Christel Saioni from France finished in 5th place.

"I'll never give up to trying to beat her...."

Because of the warm weather, the racing conditions were very bad for late-start skiers, which also explains the devastating margin between Janica and her closest rivals. In fact the race jury was obliged to change the rules in the second round and revolve the starting order for the top-15 instead of the top-30 from the first run.

Kostelic already built up a strong lead in the first round, but in the second round she kept on attacking, increasing her advantage on the American skier by 3/10 of a second. In winning this race, Janica set a new record in the specialty: no female skier has won nine slaloms in a row, as she has since December 1999.

In 1989, Vreni Schneider from Switzerland won seven slaloms in one season. The longest winning streak in the World Cup was set in the late '70s by Ingemar Stenmark from Sweden who won 14 consecutive giant slalom races over three season. But this didn't move Janica too much. As always, she remained cool at the finish line after accomplishing her run and controlled her emotions as well.

"It has been a difficult race because of the conditions but it did not matter for me, I could ski the way I wanted," she said. She is now, more than ever, the skier to beat at St. Anton in two weeks in slalom, but this doesn't make her too nervous.

"St. Anton will just be a race like an other for me, I just hope to do my best as usual," she said. "I'm looking forward for the super G on Monday in Austria."

The American skiers have achieved the best performances for the US Team for many years. It has been a very long time since two US skiers finished at the very top of the standings in the slalom and Koznick was pleased to find her way back on the podium.

"It is great to be back just in time for the World Cup. Once more Janica has been unbelievable, but I'll never give up trying to beat her," she said. This time Kristina seems mentally stronger than in recent races and she has a good chance to perform well at St. Anton.

Sarah was just unlucky in the first round to have a late start number, but she was lucky to be the among the first on course in the afternoon. Once more she could ski at her best level yet was sorry to miss another podium. "It's just too bad after this great comeback but I have to be happy after my poor first run," she said.

— Patrick Lang, World Cup Correspondent

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