Kari Traa

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Kari Traa Freestyle skiing
Kari Traa
nation NorwayNorway Norway
birthday January 28, 1974
place of birth Voss ,  NorwayNorwayNorway 
size 168 cm
Weight 65 kg
Career
society Voss Freestyle Club
National squad since 1990
status resigned
End of career 2007
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × gold 1 × silver 1 × bronze
World Cup medals 4 × gold 3 × silver 0 × bronze
Olympic rings winter Olympics
bronze 1998 Nagano Moguls
gold 2002 Salt Lake City Moguls
silver 2006 Turin Moguls
FIS Freestyle Skiing World Championships
silver 1999 Hasliberg Moguls
silver 1999 Hasliberg Dual moguls
gold 2001 Whistler Moguls
gold 2001 Whistler Dual moguls
gold 2003 Deer Valley Moguls
gold 2003 Deer Valley Dual moguls
silver 2005 Ruka Dual moguls
Placements in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup
 Debut in the World Cup March 16, 1990
 World Cup victories 36
 Overall World Cup 01. (2002-2004)
 Mughal World Cup 01. (2000/01, 2001/02)
 Dual Moguls World Cup 01. (1997/98, 1999/00)
 Ski cross world cup 16. (2002/03)
 Halfpipe World Cup 04th (2003/04)
 Podium placements 1. 2. 3.
 Moguls 29 7th 13
 Dual moguls 7th 0 4th
 halfpipe 0 0 2
 

Kari Traa (born January 28, 1974 in Voss ) is a former Norwegian freestyle skier . She was successful in the World Cup for 16 years, became an Olympic champion in 2002 and is a four-time world champion, making her one of the most successful freestylers in Norway.

Career

First successes as a junior

Traa, who worked for the Voss Freestyle Klubb , made her international debut at the age of 16 on March 16, 1990 in the Freestyle Skiing World Cup . After a 20th place in La Clusaz, Traa reached fifth place on the moguls at the International Youth Championships in Pyhätunturi . At the end of the 1990/91 World Cup season, she managed to win World Cup points for the first time in her home town of Voss when she finished 13th.

At the 1991 International Youth Championships in Le Sauze , she won bronze on the mogul slope. She started the 1991/92 season successfully with a point win in Tignes and her first top 10 place in Piancavallo . At the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville , she also started on the moguls and ended up as the second best Norwegian in 14th place. She had previously achieved the same placement in qualifying.

Rise to the top of the world

After the Olympic Games, Traa paused for a year in the World Cup and did not start again until December 1993. In January 1994 she had found her way back to the top of the world and landed in Breckenridge with 15th place, again winning points in the World Cup. At the Freestyle Skiing World Championships in 1995 , she finished 17th on the mogul slope. In December 1995, Traa started in Tignes for the first time in the discipline of synchronous moguls (English dual moguls ) and won the first World Cup points here as well, thanks to the newly introduced points system.

On January 19, 1996 Traa achieved her first podium finish in Breckenridge with third place on the mogul slope. At the end of the 1995/96 season she finished sixth in the overall mogul slope ranking, 19th place in the overall synchronized mogul slope ranking and 22nd in the overall World Cup ranking. At the beginning of the 1996/97 season she achieved a further increase in performance, so that she was able to win her first World Cup race on January 9, 1997 in Mont-Tremblant . She repeated this success shortly afterwards in Lake Placid . In Breckenridge, too, she almost succeeded, but there she had to place second on the podium with 0.05 points behind local hero Donna Weinbrecht . At the Freestyle Skiing World Championships 1997 Traa landed on a good fifth place.

After she achieved a podium place on the synchronized mogul slope for the first time on February 21, 1997, she only won the competition in Meiringen-Hasliberg for one week in the same discipline . At the beginning of the 1997/98 Olympic season, Traa was able to reach the podium again as third in La Plagne and Blackcomb , before winning bronze on the moguls at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano behind Tae Satoya and Tatjana Mittermayer .

After further World Cup victories in Tandådalen and Altenmarkt im Pongau , Traa celebrated her first overall victory in the synchronized moguls classification at the end of the 1997/98 World Cup season. She was also able to place well in the overall ranking of the mogul slope as fifth.

Traa only started the 1998/99 World Cup season in January 1999. After good top 10 placements and 12th place in Heavenly, she was back on the podium as third in Blackcomb at the end of January. At the 1999 Freestyle Skiing World Championships in Hasliberg , Traa won the silver medal in both disciplines. After the World Championship she started in the European Cup and won both races in Eikedalen .

Dominance in the World Cup

The 1999/2000 season began Traa with three wins in Tandådalen and Blackcomb. After a twelfth place in Deer Valley , she also won the mogul race in Mont-Tremblant. After she subsequently also achieved several podium positions, she landed again at the end of the season in the synchronized moguls classification after 1997/98. This season, however, she was also in a very good position in the overall World Cup ranking as seventh.

In the following season, Traa started with a win and a second place in Tignes and Deer Valley and a win in Mont-Tremblant. This made her the favorite at the 2001 Freestyle Skiing World Championships in Whistler . There she lived up to her role as a favorite and won the gold medal in both mogul slope disciplines. As world champion, she won the race in Sunday River just a week later and the competition in Inawashiro, Japan, another week later . With the exception of fifth place in Himos , she was always on the podium after the world championship until the end of the season. In the end, she celebrated her first victory in the overall mogul slope. In the overall World Cup ranking she was relegated to second place with just one point by the Australian Jacqui Cooper .

In the following season 2001/02 it was Traa's goal to finally win the overall ranking in her eleventh year in the World Cup. She started the season promisingly with two wins in Tignes and Steamboat . She was also at the top of the podium in Saint Lary and Lake Placid . At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City , she won the gold medal on the moguls after bronze in 1998. After this success, she also won the season finale in Ruka and thus in the end the overall World Cup ranking as well as the discipline ranking on the moguls again.

She was successful again in the 2002/03 season and, after finishing sixth in Tignes, won her second race in Sauze d'Oulx . After further good results, Traa started at the Freestyle Skiing World Championships 2003 in Deer Valley and won both titles for the second time after 2001. After she did not give up the lead in the overall World Cup standings again by the end of the season, she defended her title for the first time. In the discipline ratings she was in second and third place.

In the 2003/04 season , Traa could no longer consistently achieve victories or podium positions, but ended up even outside the top ten in individual races. Nevertheless, in the end it was enough for the overall victory in the World Cup for the third time in a row.

Performance slump and end of career

At the age of 30, Traa started the 2004/05 season as defending champion . After a second place in Tignes and a ninth place in Mont-Tremblant, Traa's career in Lake Placid with rank 30 on the moguls got a damper for the first time after the successes last year. Although she was able to fight her way back in Fernie with a victory in the world elite, successes like this remained more and more the exception. At the Freestyle Skiing World Championships in Ruka in 2005 , she won silver again on the synchronized mogul slope and then finished the season in sixth place in the overall World Cup ranking and second in the overall mogul slope ranking.

In the 2005/06 season she achieved three more World Cup victories before completing her collection of Olympic medals at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin with a silver medal on the moguls. After another second place in Jisan and a 23rd place in Inawashiro, she finished the race in Apex in fifth place at the end of the World Cup . In the end, she was again in second place in the overall mogul slope ranking. In the overall World Cup ranking, it was only fifth. Although there was an upward trend, it was her last start in the World Cup.

She ended her international career with the start of the Freestyle Skiing World Championships 2007 in Madonna di Campiglio , where she once again came eleventh on the mogul slope.

Outside of sport

Outside of sports, Traa received special media attention after being photographed in erotic poses for Ultrasports magazine in 2001 . In 2002, Traa founded a clothing company and won two awards for its collections. In 2006 she published her biography Kari . After the end of her career, Traa took care of the promotion of the youngsters and was involved in the organization of various World Cup events. She is one of the organizers of the Ekstremsportveko (German Extreme Sports Week ), an internationally recognized extreme sports festival .

In 2002, Traa was named "Sexiest woman in Norway" by the Norwegian magazine MANN . In 2003 and 2004 they voted Her og Nå and TV 2 Nettavisen as “Most sexy woman”. She missed this title in 2007 when she voted for the TV show God kveld, Norge! only narrowly and came second behind Tone Damli Aaberge .

successes

Web links

Commons : Kari Traa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Freestyle Skiing at the 1992 Albertville Winter Games: Women's Moguls . Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  2. ^ Freestyle Skiing at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games: Women's Moguls . Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2014. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  3. ^ Freestyle Skiing at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games: Women's Moguls . Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on November 4, 2012. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  4. ↑ Freestyle Skiing at the 2006 Torino Winter Games: Women's Moguls . Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on November 13, 2012. Retrieved May 20, 2013.
  5. ↑ Kari Traa at Bleacher Report
  6. ↑ Report on the photo series at Side3.no  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.side3.no  
  7. ↑ Interview with Kari Traa on Side2 ( Memento of the original from July 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / pub.nettavisen.no
  8. ↑ Kari Traa, Sarah Sørheim, Lasse Berre: Kari . 1st edition. Damm, 2006, ISBN 978-82-04-11874-5 .
  9. ↑ Report in Dagbladet of August 23, 2002
  10. ↑ Report on the 2007 election ( Memento of the original dated February 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on side2.no @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.side2.no
personal data
SURNAME Traa, Kari
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian skier
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Voss , Norway