Paerson Finally Banishes Kostelic

It took plenty of blood, Swedish sweat and years, but Anja Paerson finally got to stand on a podium without having to look up at Croatia’s Janica Kostelic.

After settling for two bronze medals in these Olympics to go with the bronze and silver she won four years ago, the 24-year-old Paerson claimed her first gold medal Wednesday night by winning a women’s slalom conducted in pea-soup fog at Sestriere.

She did it with a winning time of 1 minute 29.04 seconds and a second run of 46.66 seconds that knocked Kostelic from third to fourth, denying the Croat her seventh Olympic medal.

“It was just one of those days when you have total harmony,” Paerson said.

Austria earned its 10th and 11th Alpine medals of the Turin Games with Nicole Hosp winning silver and Marlies Schild claiming the bronze.

It was another tough-luck, oh well, alert-the-team-physician day for the medal-starved Americans. Sarah Schleper posted the top finish, at 10th, banged-up Lindsey Kildow ended up 15th and Resi Stiegler finished tied for 17th.

Kristina Koznick, skiing with partially torn knee ligaments, gutted out one slalom but withdrew from a second run after finishing 3.34 seconds off the lead.

She said she would have surgery Monday in Colorado.

“It took a lot of courage to go from being on crutches to being here,” Koznick said. “I wanted a fairy tale and I guess it didn’t happen, but I’m happy I tried.”

The Paerson-Kostelic battle has been going on for years, although the rivalry has been much more civil than the one in American men’s speedskating.

Paerson and Kostelic have won four of the last five World Cup overall titles but Kostelic, before Wednesday, had always upstaged Paerson in the Olympics.

“She motivates me,” Paerson said. “I think I motivate her too.”

Kostelic won three gold medals in Salt Lake City and added a fourth last week in the combined. She also has two silvers, making her the all-time Olympic medal leader among female Alpine skiers.

Paerson had almost been seething in Sestriere in her attempt to knock Kostelic off her roost.

“I’d been a bit frustrated in the beginning of the week when I felt the conditions were against me a bit,” Paerson said.

Paerson had a gold-medal run going in the downhill but settled for bronze when her skis crossed at one point and nearly caused her to crash.

She won bronze in the combined but was peeved her ski serviceman was not allowed in the start gate to buckle in her boots before the downhill run -- Paerson later breaking a pole across her knee in the finish area.

Paerson, a stronger downhill skier than Kostelic, was then put at a competitive disadvantage when the downhill combined, because of poor visibility, was shortened to a super G.

“I don’t think anyone really understands my mental ups and downs,” Paerson said.

She finished 12th in the super G but vowed she would “find that look in my eye again” for the rest of the Games.

She found it.

Paerson figures to be the gold-medal favorite in Friday’s giant slalom after it was learned that Kostelic, still fighting illness, probably would not race.

“Ninety-nine percent, probably not,” Kostelic said in the finish area.

Kildow, still hurting more than a week after she crashed in a downhill training run, has skied in four events but said Wednesday she might also pull out of Friday’s race.

This rapidly dwindling field could allow Paerson to make even more history.

She already is being compared in Sweden to Ingemar Stenmark, a double-gold medal winner at the 1980 Lake Placid Games and winner of a record 86 World Cup races.

They were raised in the same area, Tamaby, but Paerson almost seems embarrassed that her name is being linked to Stenmark’s.

“He’s my idol,” Paerson said. “I’m just a small girl, from a small town in Sweden. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe it’s true.”

The American women, in the meantime, slog along, beginning Friday’s final race without a medal.

Koznick was the top U.S. hope in slalom, a six-time career winner on the World Cup, but her medal chance effectively ended when she injured her knee Feb. 4 in a training run at Ofterschwang, Germany.

She was on crutches until Saturday, and it didn’t take long Wednesday to see Koznick was not close to race ready.

Paerson said it pained her to see Koznick try to race.

“I was almost crying when I saw Kozzie coming down the slope,” Paerson said, “ ... it tore my heart.”

Koznick has failed to complete a slalom event in three Olympics and her pain embodies a sad-sack American Alpine campaign.

“I don’t know if I can say I am lucky to be here, but I am here, and I am racing,” Koznick said. “It’s my third Olympics and not many people can say that.... I definitely spent some time crying and asking why, but there is no answer. Up to this point, it hasn’t been our Olympics and there is no answer. It’s the nature of athletics.”

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MEDAL WINNERS

WOMEN’S SLALOM

GOLD

* Anja Paerson, Sweden

SILVER

* Nicole Hosp, Austria

BRONZE

* Marlies Schild, Austria