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 1