ZAGREB, Feb 23 (Hina) - "Janica Kostelic Enters History" is a report issued by the Reuters, AFP, DPA and APA news agencies. APA stresses Janica's achievements can only be compared to the legend of Alpine skiing Austrian Toni Sailer in
1956 in Cortina d'Ampezzo and France's Jean-Claude Killy in 1968 in Grenoble. The agency recalls Janica's father Ante, her difficult road to success, and also predicts her long stay at the top. France's AFP also compares Janica with Sailer and Killy. Although she was never better than fourth place, Janica showed her dominance in great slalom, and her co-skiiers admire her technique and mental strength, writes Reuters. The Serbian press today had no mention of Kostelic's triumph. Only the electronic media reported about it. It is to be presumed that deadlines were the reason for the press not mentioning Janica, but even in the past days Janica had no more than a mention in dailies and other paper
ZAGREB, Feb 23 (Hina) - "Janica Kostelic Enters History" is a report
issued by the Reuters, AFP, DPA and APA news agencies.
APA stresses Janica's achievements can only be compared to the
legend of Alpine skiing Austrian Toni Sailer in 1956 in Cortina
d'Ampezzo and France's Jean-Claude Killy in 1968 in Grenoble. The
agency recalls Janica's father Ante, her difficult road to success,
and also predicts her long stay at the top.
France's AFP also compares Janica with Sailer and Killy.
Although she was never better than fourth place, Janica showed her
dominance in great slalom, and her co-skiiers admire her technique
and mental strength, writes Reuters.
The Serbian press today had no mention of Kostelic's triumph. Only
the electronic media reported about it.
It is to be presumed that deadlines were the reason for the press not
mentioning Janica, but even in the past days Janica had no more than
a mention in dailies and other papers.
The only exception is Belgrade's daily "Danas" which dedicated its
"Person of the Day" article to her.
All important media in Bosnia ran reports on Friday and Saturday
about Kostelic's fourth Olympic medal.
Sarajevo's "Oslobodjenje" describes Janica as "a phenomenal
skier", the only one in alpine skiing who one medals in four races.
"Dnevni avaz" says Croatia's best skier definitely entered the
winter Olympic games history.
The "Dani" weekly runs a story about the "authentic miracle" and
says that a small country with no real skiing terrain, a public
which would follow such sports, and even true snow, achieved a
miracle.
Janica's father Ante is a key persona -- his small family project
yielded fascinating results, Dani concludes, and stresses that
this was a result of enthusiasm of individuals, not a systematic
state support.
The fantastic, but unexpected success which will be difficult to
repeat, is an assessment by Slovene media.
"Janica gets third gold medal and first place in history,"
Ljubljana's Delo writes.
"Sailer and Killy are in Kostelic's shadow," Slovene's daily
Dnevnik writes.
Slovene television commentators stressed Janica's father Ante was
key to her success, and the medals were the result of work which
lasted the past 7 to 8 years.
Only 20 years old, Janica has already entered history, Italian
media write.
RAI television commentators ran a replay of Janica's skiing and
analysed every move. Commentator Paolo de Ciesa compared her to
Alberto Tomba.
America's daily "USA TODAY", after Kostelic's victory in Great
Slalom, stresses that Kostelic creates Olympic history.
You must wonder whether Janica is a human being. How she is relaxed,
but skis fast. She is a true queen, the daily quotes Anja Paerson, a
silver medal winner, who admits that beside Janica, a fight for gold
was out of the question.
"Washington Post" states that Janica outclassed her competitors.
After Janica reached the goal, the public erupted in joy, fireworks
started, the paper writes.
After her first drive, she made a grimace like Michael Jordan.
What can I say. Even I don't know how she manages it, the Los Angeles
Times writes in an article entitled Sensational Croatian.
(hina) lml sb