The Koroška-born alpine skier will return home from Russia with at least two gold medals and cult status in Slovenian sports. She has become the third Slovenian athlete to have won Olympic gold – only gymnasts Leon Štukelj and Miro Cerar accomplished this feat before.
Other numbers related to Maze’s feat:
1: Before Maze only one alpine skier managed to win the downhill as well as giant slalom at the same Olympics – namely, Marie Theres Nadig from Switzerland in 1972 in Sapporo, Japan.
2: Tina Maze has won her second gold Olympic medal, which has earned her 2nd place on the list of Slovenian athletes according to the number of Olympic medals won. The late gymnast Leon Štukelj remains on the top of the list.
3: Up until Sochi only three female alpine skiers won two medals in giant slalom at the Olympics. These are Perrine Pelen, Vreni Schneider and Deborah Compagnoni. Today’s feats have added Tina Maze and Viktoria Rebensburg to the list.
4: The collection of Tina Maze now holds four Olympic medals. Among Slovenians, only the achievements of Leon Štukelj and the rower Iztok Čop match hers.
5: The giant slalom has always been Maze’s favourite discipline. Sochi is the fifth in a row of big competitions where she won a medal, starting with World Ski Championship Val d’Iser in 2009.
6: Slovenian ‘harvest’ of medals at Sochi Olympics now comprises six medals, which is a new record.
The previous one was held by the Peking 2008 team, who has won five medals at the summer Olympics, whereas the previous ‘winter’ record amounted to three medals.
7: The game of milliseconds has played to Maze’s favour this time – she won her second gold medal with a lead of seven milliseconds.
8: Slovenian athletes won Slovenia’s first medal at Winter Olympics in 1984 in Sarajevo, Bosna and Herzegovina. It then took 22 years to enlarge this collection to eight medals. The following nine medals are the results of mere two Olympics (Vancouver and Sochi).
9: Medals in alpine skiing have been won by skiers from nine countries so far. Only Slovenia, Austria and Switzerland have two gold medals each.
10: Altogether Tina Maze has now won ten medals at world championships and Olympics.
30: Upon winning her second gold medals, the golden Tina was 30 years and 292 days old, which makes her the oldest winner of an Olympic gold medal in giant slalom.
50: The last place at the giant slalom Olympic race went to Vanessa Vanakorn (better known as Vanessa Mae), a famous violin player, who was fifty seconds slower than the winner.
