Slovenia’s record-breaking ski champion
After becoming the world’s top female skier in 2013, when she scored a record 2,414 points to lift the FIS crystal globe, Slovenia’s Tina Maze underlined her domination of women’s Alpine skiing at Sochi 2014.
Breaking new ground for her country
Born in the village of Crna na Koroskem, where, in her own words, “there was nothing else to do but ski”, Tina Maze has been starring on the international scene since the age of 16, first as a giant slalom specialist and then as a multi-talented skier capable of shining in both the technical and speed events. At Vancouver 2010 she achieved what were then her country’s best ever results in the Olympic Winter Games, winning silver in both the super-G and giant slalom events. A year later she skied to victory in the giant slalom in Garmisch-Partenkirchen to win Slovenia’s first ever world title.
Records come tumbling
Between November 2012 and March 2013 the Slovenian star went on a record-breaking run in the FIS World Cup, becoming a member of the highly select club of all-event winners that also features Petra Kronberger, Pernilla Wiberg, Janica Kostelic, Anja Pärson and Lindsey Vonn. What was unique about Maze’s entry to this elite group was that she achieved it across a single winter, one in which she scored 11 victories and 24 podium finishes to top the FIS World Cup standings with 2,414 points, the highest total ever attained by any skier, male or female. During the course of her phenomenal season, Maze also won the 2013 world super-G title in Schladming and went on to collect silver medals in the giant slalom and super combined.
On song in Sochi
Setting her sights firmly on Sochi 2014, Maze let her rivals fight it out for the overall FIS World Cup title in 2013/14 before proving that she had got her priorities just right when the Games came around. In the downhill she produced a masterful run to tie with Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin for a unique shared gold medal. Six days later, she secured her status as Sochi 2014’s queen of the slopes by edging out Austria’s Anna Fenninger by 0.07 seconds in the giant slalom, a triumph founded on her forceful first run.
Long live Queen Tina
Posting a photo of herself in a T-shirt bearing the legend “Keep calm coz I’m the Queen,” Maze wrote on her blog at the end of the 2013/14 campaign: “It was not perfect. It never is. But behind me I see two gold medals won in Sochi, my dream since Vancouver 2010. I’ll be back.”
