Tina MAZE |
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Tina Maze has become the poster definition of an all-around skier the last couple of years. After nabbing a series of silver medals in the 2009 world ski championships and the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Slovenian finally found gold in the world championships in 2011, taking the top step of the podium in giant slalom and getting another silver in super-combined. She wrapped up the 2011 season with her first slalom victory and kicked off 2012 skiing her strongest in the tight gates, but still cabable of being on top in any discipline.
If she didn't commit so much time to ski racing, it's highly possible Maze could be a famous pianist. As it stands, her secondary interest of music is enough to entertain her Slovenian teammates when they happen to stay in a hotel on the World Cup tour that has a piano. Still, Maze believes that the passion and focus required of playing music is similar to what makes her fast on the race course.
"I was playing the piano at school and I think the art goes really good with sport. It's really related," she said. "You need feeling for sport like you need for art or music or whatever."
After making her World Cup debut on her home hill in Maribor in 1999, the 26-year-old from the small town of Crna na Koroskem in the northern part of Slovenia became a regular presence on the Cup circuit in 2000-01 and clinched her first victory in the 2002/2003 season at the opening giant slalom race in Soelden. She has since checked off eleven more victories - eight in GS - and became the first Slovenian woman in history to win a World Cup downhill race in St. Moritz in 2008. Much to the home crowd's delight, Maze made her first Cup podium in Maribor in 2002 (second pace in GS) and has gone on to win the tour's token stop in her home country twice (in 2005 and 2009).
Her determination and focus in her sport was evident in her 2009 world championship giant slalom race. In the first run of the race, Maze finished 15th and stormed off the race course with angry tears streaming down her face because her goggles were fogged up the entire way down the course. Then she came back for the second run and skied it nearly a second faster than anyone else, which was enough to win the silver world championship medal.
"I was fighting," Maze said after the race. "I just skied down angry at every gate. I should get someone to get me angry at the start so I can ski like this every time."
Quiet and unassuming but quick to smile, before her world championship silver Maze, who is one of very few women on the circuit to race on Stoeckli skis, had feared herself unable to perform in big events. She said winning the medal gave her one of "the greatest feelings" she's ever had.
With 28 World Cup podiums to her name in GS, slalom, super-G and downhill, Maze wrapped up last season with a victory in the final race in Are, Sweden, and is sure to carry that speed into the 2011/2012 season.
Though she prefers to spend her summer time near the sea playing beach volleyball, Maze, who traveled independently with two personal coaches on the World Cup tour last season, has time for little else in the winter besides training, physical therapy and ski racing.
In addition to her Mother Tongue of Slovenian, Maze speaks German and English and likes to drink coffee to wake up in the morning before training or racing and is known to have another cup in the afternoon so she can "wake up again."