Kostelic Still Manages to Move Mountains

Charging out of the chute in her go-for-broke style, Janica Kostelic loses an edge and slides down the course barely a half-dozen gates into the race. She’s angry, but later shrugs it off.

After five surgeries and a nearly two-year layoff, the 24-year-old Kostelic realizes winning consecutive World Cup races might be a little too much to ask at this point.

“It’s kind of logical knowing the circumstances I’m coming into this season,” Kostelic said. “Winning two times in two days or being three days on the podium, it would be too much even for me.”

Then again, it probably wouldn’t have been all that surprising, considering Kostelic’s history of comebacks.

A torn right knee ligament in 1999 didn’t slow her down much. The Croatian won her first World Cup overall title less than two years later and went on to become the first Alpine skier to win four medals in one Olympics, taking home three golds and a silver at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

A sore knee throughout the 2002-03 season didn’t seem to have much of an effect, either. Kostelic won 10 races and her second World Cup overall title.

This time around, though, Kostelic missed 19 months after having her thyroid gland removed and four knee surgeries.

Another comeback, similar results.

Skiing conservatively Oct. 23 in Austria, Kostelic finished eighth in the giant slalom in her first World Cup race since March 2003. More confident about her knee last weekend in Aspen, Kostelic finished third in a giant slalom and won a slalom the next day.

Kostelic led after one run and fell early in her second run in a second slalom, showing she has lost little of her aggressive style. By pointing her tips straight down the mountain, Kostelic showed she’s ready to re-stake her claim as the world’s best female skier.

“It’s been a long year,” Kostelic said. “It was a good test for me.”

Janica and her brother, Ivica, rocketed to stardom in the late 1990s, becoming national icons in Croatia after climbing from the depths of poverty.

Sleeping in their car as they traveled to events across Europe, Janica and Ivica became the first brother and sister to win gold at the same world championships, in 2003. They were treated to a rock star welcome when they returned, with more than with 100,000 people filling the main square in Zagreb.

Janica always has overshadowed her older brother, who has been through his share of injuries and comebacks, in part because of her never-back-down approach. Janica not so much cuts around gates as bursts through them.

She is known as one of the world’s best foul-weather skiers. While others struggle when the course gets choppy, Kostelic powers her way through the rough spots.

“We know what she can do and she’s always strong,” said Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen, who has won two of the first four World Cup races this season. “I never look at one person when I’m at the start, I’m trying to focus on my thing, but when she’s on the start for sure you know she’s going to do a huge run.”

After the latest round of injuries, Kostelic wasn’t sure if she’d ever come back.

First, it was her knee. Kostelic had surgery four times in five months after the 2003 finals, each time finding something else wrong as she tried to come back. Finally cleared of knee troubles, she started feeling fatigued and having trouble with her vision.

Kostelic was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, in which the thyroid overproduces hormones. For months, doctors tried various medications and nothing seemed to help.

Finally, after nearly six months of wondering if she’d ever feel right again, Kostelic had her thyroid removed in January.

“There was a period when we didn’t know what was happening, what was wrong,” said Ante Kostelic, Janica’s father and coach. “This illness is like the devil. It attacks all the body, the eyes, everything. Before the operation she had problems with her eyes and hair -- she lost chunks of hair -- and (had) osteoporosis. It was a mystery for us.”

And now that the mystery’s over, Kostelic expects nothing less than to go down the hill as fast as she can and keep beating the best skiers in the world -- just as she always has.

“It’s just another comeback,” said Kostelic, who takes medication every day for her missing thyroid. “Every comeback is special in some way, but they’re all the same story: you crash, wreck your knee or whatever happens, do the rehab training and you’re back on the course.”

And, in Kostelic’s case, start winning again.