Croatian alpine skier
Ivica Kosteli?
(
pronounced
[?i?itsa
?k?st?lit?]
; born 23 November 1979) is a Croatian former
alpine ski racer
. He specialized in
slalom
and
combined
, but was also one of the few alpine World Cup ski racers able to score points in all disciplines. He is the brother of skiing champion
Janica Kosteli?
. In his career he was coached by his father
Ante Kosteli?
, as well as by
Kristian Ghedina
and Tomislav Krsti?evi?.
Biography
[
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]
After considerable success in junior competitions, Kosteli?'s
World Cup
career alternated between triumph and injury. His main accomplishments include a
World Championship
gold medal in
slalom
in
2003
,
Olympic
silver medal in slalom in
2010
, three consecutive Olympic silver medals in
combined
in
2006
(traditional combined),
2010
(super combined) and
2014
, as well as the overall
World Cup
title in 2011.
Kosteli? scored a total of 26
World Cup
race victories and a total of 59
World Cup
podiums during his career (as of February 2014
[update]
). He won the slalom World Cup title in 2002 and 2011, and the combined World Cup title in 2011 and 2012.
Since 2008, he finished among the top six in the overall World Cup standings each season (2008: sixth; 2009: fourth; 2010: fifth; 2011: first; 2012: fourth; 2013: fifth). He also scored points in all disciplines each of those seasons, and his best race results were 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, 4 in
super combined
, and 1 in
super-G
).
Ivica Kosteli? is currently one of the coaches the Croatian national team.
Career
[
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]
Early World Cup years (1998?2002)
[
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]
Kosteli? made his first World Cup start in October
1998
in
Solden
, 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.
Breakthrough (2002?2005)
[
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]
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.
Kosteli? 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.
Resurgence as all-event skier (2006?2010)
[
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]
Kosteli? began his World Cup career as a technical specialist, racing only slalom and GS (with an occasional super-G), but started to ski more often 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. He did win a Nor-Am downhill in December 1998 at Lake Louise, Canada. As his sister Janica, 'Ivo' has always been aiming to become a complete racer able to excel in all specialties. He scored his first World Cup points at Kitzbuehel, Austria, finishing 29th on the 'Streif' in January 2008. A week later he was 8th in the downhill at Chamonix, in France. 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, Kosteli? joined the select group of World Cup racers able to excel in all disciplines. 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 events, 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.
Overall World Cup title (2011)
[
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]
Kosteli?'s skiing would reach another level during the
2011
season. Following a third in the season-opening slalom in November at Levi, Finland, 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 2 January, 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
Kitzbuhel
, 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, Kosteli?'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, Kosteli? 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 after he sustained a knee injury in the second giant slalom run. He had chosen 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 12 March, 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 19 March, despite finishing out of the points that day.
[7]
Kosteli? would win a total of three crystal globes for the 2011 season including the overall, slalom, and combined titles.
Defending the overall World Cup title (2012)
[
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]
In the
2012
season Kosteli? had a better start than the year before, winning two slaloms in December. His next victories were the super combined and the slalom at
Wengen
, and the following weekend he won also the classical combined of the
Hahnenkamm
races (downhill and slalom) in
Kitzbuhel
, where he took the overall lead for the first time that season. However, in February 2012 he sustained an injury and missed 11 races, including two classic slaloms and one parallel, in
Stockholm
. In the meantime,
Marcel Hirscher
took the lead in the overall standings and would go on to claim his first overall title. Kosteli? returned to action in
Schladming
at the end of the season, and competed only in slalom. He finished 16th and
Andre Myhrer
took the slalom title.
Personal life
[
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]
Born and raised in
Zagreb
, his parents,
Ante
and Marica, are former elite
team handball
players. They taught Ivica and his sister
Janica
, two years younger, to ski on the nearby hill
Sljeme
(now the site of the annual
Snow Queen Trophy
World Cup races).
[8]
Janica Kosteli? also became an accomplished skier, and Ante Kosteli? remained their primary ski coach throughout their careers, and was the head coach of the Croatian ski team.
[9]
In 2006 Kosteli? passed the entrance exam at the
University of Zagreb
to become a part-time
undergraduate
student of history.
[10]
In 2014 Kosteli? married longtime girlfriend Elin Ararsdotir, a native of
Iceland
. In October she gave birth to their first child, a son Ivan. In July 2016 Elin gave birth to their second child, a son Leon.
[11]
Nacional
article
[
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]
In January 2003, after winning the slalom at
Kranjska Gora
, Kosteli? 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
.
[12]
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 Kosteli? from an interview that he gave to the weekly in May 2002. According to
Nacional
Kosteli? 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."
[13]
His remarks were interpreted by the weekly as a sign of
far-right
political leanings and the story attracted attention from international press.
[14]
Kosteli? 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".
[12]
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.
[12]
Since 2002 Ante Kosteli? 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, mra?ne sile zlo?ina?ke politike
(
Waffen-SS, the Dark Forces of Criminal Politics
) by Hrvoje Spaji? about the
Waffen-SS
which Ante Kosteli? had edited.
[15]
World Cup results
[
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]
Season titles
[
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]
A
Unofficial, tied with
Alexis Pinturault
.
Season standings
[
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]
Season
|
Age
|
Overall
|
Slalom
|
Giant
slalom
|
Super-G
|
Downhill
|
Combined
|
2001
|
21
|
107
|
40
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
2002
|
22
|
7
|
1
|
22
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
2003
|
23
|
7
|
2
|
27
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
2004
|
24
|
34
|
14
|
30
|
37
|
?
|
?
|
2005
|
25
|
31
|
7
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
2006
|
26
|
40
|
15
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
16
|
2007
|
27
|
25
|
16
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
3
|
2008
|
28
|
6
|
5
|
40
|
25
|
35
|
2
|
2009
|
29
|
4
|
2
|
8
|
26
|
47
|
4
|
2010
|
30
|
5
|
4
|
21
|
15
|
23
|
3
|
2011
|
31
|
1
|
1
|
11
|
3
|
25
|
1
|
2012
|
32
|
4
|
2
|
23
|
?
|
43
|
1
|
2013
|
33
|
5
|
3
|
14
|
28
|
44
|
1
[A]
|
2014
|
34
|
42
|
16
|
32
|
34
|
?
|
30
|
2015
|
35
|
50
|
31
|
?
|
?
|
59
|
4
|
2016
|
36
|
105
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
20
|
2017
|
37
|
139
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
?
|
35
|
A
Crystal globes in Combined have not been officially awarded for
2013 season
. However, athletes still get their medals.
Race victories
[
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]
- 26 wins ? 15 slalom, 9 combined (5 super combined, 4 traditional), 1 parallel slalom, 1 super-G
Season
|
Date
|
Location
|
Discipline
|
2002
|
25 November 2001
|
Aspen
, USA
|
Slalom
|
13 January 2002
|
Wengen
, Switzerland
|
Slalom
|
9 March 2002
|
Flachau
, Austria
|
Slalom
|
2003
|
16 December 2002
|
Sestriere
, Italy
|
Slalom
|
5 January 2003
|
Kranjska Gora
, Slovenia
|
Slalom
|
12 January 2003
|
Bormio
, Italy
|
Slalom
|
2004
|
15 December 2003
|
Madonna di Campiglio
, Italy
|
Slalom
|
2007
|
10 December 2006
|
Reiteralm
, Austria
|
Super combined
|
2009
|
22 December 2008
|
Alta Badia
, Italy
|
Slalom
|
2010
|
17 January 2010
|
Wengen, Switzerland
|
Slalom
|
24 January 2010
|
Kitzbuhel
, Austria
|
Combined
|
2011
|
2 January 2011
|
Munich
, Germany
|
Parallel slalom
|
9 January 2011
|
Adelboden
, Switzerland
|
Slalom
|
14 January 2011
|
Wengen, Switzerland
|
Super combined
|
16 January 2011
|
Slalom
|
21 January 2011
|
Kitzbuhel, Austria
|
Super-G
|
23 January 2011
|
Combined
|
30 January 2011
|
Chamonix
, France
|
Super combined
|
2012
|
8 December 2011
|
Beaver Creek
, USA
|
Slalom
|
21 December 2011
|
Flachau, Austria
|
Slalom
|
13 January 2012
|
Wengen, Switzerland
|
Super combined
|
15 January 2012
|
Slalom
|
22 January 2012
|
Kitzbuhel, Austria
|
Combined
|
12 February 2012
|
Sochi
, Russia
|
Super combined
|
2013
|
27 January 2013
|
Kitzbuhel, Austria
|
Combined
|
10 March 2013
|
Kranjska Gora, Slovenia
|
Slalom
|
World Championships results
[
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Olympic results
[
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]
Podiums per discipline
[
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]
NOTE: This table counts all career races in A-team, including FIS World Cup, FIS World Championships and Winter Olympics.
See also
[
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]
References
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]
External links
[
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]
Related
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Yugoslav era
(1952?90)
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Since independence
(1991?present)
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