Bojan Križaj

Bojan Križaj
nation	Yugoslavia
birthday	3rd January 1957 (age 63)
place of birth	Kranj , Yugoslavia
Career
discipline	Giant slalom , slalom , super-G , combination
status	resigned
End of career	1988
Medal table
World championships 0 × 1 × 0 × Junior European Championship 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Alpine World Ski Championships silver Schladming 1982 slalom  Alpine Junior European Ski Championships gold Mayrhofen 1975 slalom
Placements in the Alpine Ski World Cup
Individual world cup victories 8th  Overall World Cup 4. ( 1979/80 )  Giant Slalom World Cup 3. ( 1978/79 )  Slalom World Cup 1. ( 1986/87 )  Combination World Cup 12. ( 1980/81 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Giant slalom 0 3 4th  slalom 8th 9 9

Bojan Križaj (born January 3, 1957 in Kranj ) is a former Yugoslav ski racer . He was an excellent technician and one of the best slalom and giant slalom runners of the 1980s.

biography

Križaj was born into a well-known family of skiers and learned to ski at the age of three. He first took part in a world championship in 1974 and was 13th in slalom. The next year he won the gold medal in slalom at the European Junior Championships in Mayrhofen . In December 1977 he was able to place in the points for the first time in the World Cup . At the start of the 1977/78 season he reached the top three in the Madonna di Campiglio slalom for the first time.

Two years later, on January 20, 1980, he achieved his first World Cup victory in Wengen . This was also the first victory of a Yugoslav runner in the history of the World Cup. Seven more victories followed by the end of his career. This makes him the most successful Slovenian ski racer of all time to this day.

His most successful season in the World Cup was 1986/87, when he won the individual World Cup in slalom; the only valuation this year that did not go to the Swiss Pirmin Zurbriggen . In the Slalom World Cup he was also runner-up in the 1979/80 and 1985/86 seasons and third in 1980/81. He achieved the best placement in the overall World Cup in 1979/80 with a fourth place.

At major events, however, Križaj only came out on top once. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid , he missed the bronze medal in the giant slalom by just two hundredths of a second and came in fourth. Four years later he took the Olympic oath at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo . But he was unable to meet the high expectations placed on him and only finished seventh in slalom and ninth in giant slalom. Križaj also qualified for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary . However, due to an injury that he sustained shortly before the start of the games, he had to give up participation and he flew home on February 25th.

He won his only medal at the Alpine World Ski Championships in Schladming in 1982 , where he won the silver medal in the slalom behind Ingemar Stenmark from Sweden . Križaj ended his career in March 1988 at the World Cup final in Saalbach-Hinterglemm , where he took off his skis shortly before the end of the route and walked to the finish.

successes

Olympic games

• Lake Placid 1980 : 4th giant slalom
• Sarajevo 1984 : 7th slalom, 9th giant slalom

World championships

• St. Moritz 1974 : 13th slalom
• Schladming 1982 : 2nd slalom, 7th giant slalom
• Bormio 1985 : 5th slalom, 8th giant slalom
• Crans-Montana 1987 : 6th slalom

World Cup ratings

Bojan Križaj once won the discipline classification in slalom.

season	total		Giant slalom		slalom		combination
	space	Points	space	Points	space	Points	space	Points
1976/77	43.	15th	22nd	3	15th	12	-	-
1977/78	20th	31	12.	12	11.	20th	-	-
1978/79	8th.	106	3.	96	12.	49	-	-
1979/80	4th	131	6th	56	2.	88	-	-
1980/81	6th	137	15th	40	3.	80	12.	17th
1981/82	9.	108	8th.	45	6th	63	-	-
1982/83	9.	112	20th	22nd	5.	78	15th	12
1983/84	10.	106	17th	34	5.	66	31.	6th
1984/85	10.	101	22nd	22nd	6th	69	20th	10
1985/86	15th	115	19th	15th	2.	100	-	-
1986/87	9.	90	-	-	1.	105	-	-
1987/88	51.	21st	-	-	16.	21st	-	-

World Cup victories

date	place	country	discipline
20th January 1980	Wengen	Switzerland	slalom
January 25, 1981	Wengen	Switzerland	slalom
March 20, 1982	Kranjska Gora	Slovenia	slalom
February 12, 1983	Le Markstein	France	slalom
December 16, 1984	Madonna di Campiglio	Italy	slalom
March 21, 1986	Bromont	Canada	slalom
December 20, 1986	Kranjska Gora	Slovenia	slalom
January 25, 1987	Kitzbühel	Austria	slalom

He also won the slalom on November 28, 1986 as part of the World Series of Skiing in Sestriere, which is only part of the Nations Cup .

Junior European Championships

• Mayrhofen 1975 : 1st slalom

Web links

• Bojan Križaj in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Bojan Križaj in the database of Ski-DB (English)
• Bojan Križaj in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Comet or Shooting Star ?, last paragraph . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 25, 1988, p. 21 ( arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).