Aamodt and Kostelic Made Marks on Olympic History

Kjetil Andre Aamodt and Janica Kostelic made a mark on Olympic history on February 19th, setting records in Sestriere and San Sicario Fraiteve. Aamodt achieved his gold medal in the Alpine Super G, the veteran from Norway now has a total of eight Olympic medals, four gold, two silver and two bronze. Janica Kostelic is the first female Alpine skier to achieve four gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games.

Aamodt victory also makes him the first Alpine skier to win Olympic medals at four different editions of the Games: Albertville 1992, Lillehammer 1994, Salt Lake City 2002 and Torino 2006. So far only two athletes have won Olympic medals at five editions: Georg Hackl (GER), luge, and Harri Kirvesniemi (FIN), cross-country skiing. Seven other athletes have won medals at four different editions of the Olympic Winter Games Aamodt was already the Alpine skier with most Olympic medals before his victory on the 19th. He is followed in the overall medal standings for men’s Alpine skiing by Aberto Tomba from Italy and Lasse Kjus from Norway, who are tied with five medals each. Aamodt won his first Olympic gold medal at the Winter Games in Albertville in 1992. Janica Kostelic Olympic record is to be the first female Alpine skier to win four gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games. She is followed by Vreni Schneider and Katja Seizinger who both won three Olympic gold medals. The record win of gold medals for women at the Olympic Winter Games stands at six with Lydia Skoblikova (URS), speed skating, and Lyubov Egorova (EUN/RUS), cross-country skiing. Two other female athletes won five gold medals.

In the past Kostelic competed at the 1998 Nagano Olympics when she was only 16 years old, but she really came through on the 2000-2001 season, when she won the overall World Cup title with 1,256 points on that season. Her country honoured her by making her the first athlete to appear on a Croatian postage stamp. During the Salt Lake City Olympics on 2002, Kostelic had amazing ten days.

She recorded the fastest time in each of the three runs of the combined event, winning by almost 1½ seconds. Next she finished second in the super-G, missing a gold medal by only five hundredths of a second. Three days later, she edged Laure Pequegnot by seven hundredths of a second to win the slalom. Finally, she led both runs of the giant slalom to earn her third gold medal and her fourth total medal.

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