March 20, 2022 - World junior slalom champion 18-year-old Zrinka Ljutić took the opportunity to compete in the World Cup finals in Meribel, France, where she won fifth place in the strongest competition!

Slovenian Andreja Slokar won the first slalom victory in her career, reports Gol.hr.

The Zagreb skier achieved an excellent result in the first run when she reached ninth place with the starting number of 25, and with her uncompromising performance in the final run, she achieved the sixth-best time for the fifth place in the end, which brought her 45 points.

The 24-year-old Slovenian Andreja Slokar skied exceptionally in the second run, and after the sixth time in the first slalom, she achieved a great advantage over the competitors. In the second performance, the Slovenian skier was 1.23 seconds faster than the leader of the first run German Lena Duerr, which in the end brought her 48 hundredths of an advantage. In the end, the best slalom skier in the world and the Olympic winner in this discipline, Petra Vlhova, finished in third and was 81 hundredths behind the winner.

The big day for Slovenian skiers was completed by Ana Bucik, who won fourth place with 1.04 seconds behind her compatriot. However, Zrinka Ljutić was 45 hundredths of a second slower than Slokar in the second run, and in the end, she finished 1.22 seconds behind.

Unfortunately, Leona Popović finished the second competition in a row with a mistake in the first run. As a result, the best Croatian skier ended the season with 146 points, which brought her 14th place among slalom skiers, while Zrinka Ljutić finished with 50 points as the 30th among the best slalom skiers in the world.

The skiers will ride the giant slalom in Meribel on Sunday, with the first run at 9:00 and the second at noon. Four more skiers have a chance to win the small Crystal Globe: Sweden's Sara Hector (522 points), France's Tessa Worley (517), America's Mikaela Shiffrin (471), and Slovakia's Petra Vlhova (431). Croatia will not have a representative in the last race of the World Cup this season.

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Mach 8, 2022 - Young Croatian skier Zrinka Ljutić is the world junior slalom champion and has become the first Croatian female to win gold at the FIS World Junior Championships!

Croatian skier Zrinka Ljutić drove two great runs in Panorama, Canada. She was the fastest with an advantage after the first, while in the second she had the second-best time, but no direct competitor was close and that was more than enough for the final result of 1:39.88, or 84 hundredths of an advantage over the second-placed German Emma Aicher.

Sweden's Moa Bostroem Mussener won the bronze medal with one second and 21 hundredths behind.

"The feeling is amazing. I couldn't believe it when I reached the finish line, because it was very difficult, the track was damaged, I didn't know if I was fast enough, I didn't know anything, but I fought as hard as I could," said the world champion for Sportske Novosti and described how she felt when she saw that the result good. 

"When I saw that I had 84 hundredths better time, I was so happy."

This is the first Croatian women's gold at the FIS World Junior Championships.

So far, Janica Kostelić, Ana Jelušić and Nika Fleiss have won medals at the junior world competitions for Croatia in the women's category, and Istok Rodeš and Elias Kolega in the men's competition, but of all the Croatian representatives on the podium, only Rodeš has been on the highest step so far after taking gold in 2016 in Sochi.

As the new world junior champion, Ljutić secured the slalom at this season's World Cup final, which will be held in Courchevel, France, from March 16 to 20. The women’s slalom is scheduled for Saturday, March 19. 

The 18-year-old skier is a member of the Croatian Ski Club Žuti Mačak from Zagreb. 

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November 10, 2020 - Sixteen-year-old Zrinka Ljutic, a promising Croatian skier, achieved an excellent result in the first FIS giant slalom race of her career.

Index.hr reports that with a starting number 114, she finished the first run in 33rd place, and in the second run, she finished in 21st with the second-best time of the second run.

The FIS races are just below the World Cup races, in which the best skiers in the world participate, and in which the last Croatian representatives were Janica Kostelic, Ana Jelusic, and Nika Fleiss.

With this result, Ljutic won 51.36 FIS points, the most that any Croatian skiers won in their first FIS race. At the beginning of 2020, Ljutic became the best skier in the world, winning as many as four gold medals at the strongest international competition for young skiers.

Sixteen-year-old Zrinka has a dream season behind her; she is untouchable in slalom and giant slalom, which she proved at the Alpe Cimbra Cup, the unofficial world championship for younger ages, once known as the Topolino Trophy.

Behind these successes stand the harmonious Ljutic family. Dad Amir and four children, 17-year-old Tvrtko, 16-year-old Zrinka, 15-year-old Dora, and 13-year-old Hrvoje, spend most of the year in Innerkrems, Austria, where they train and continue learning.

Despite spending more than nine months a year in the snow, Zrinka and her older brother are great surfers. Her brother is also one of the best young surfers in Europe in the freestyle discipline.

"At sea, we train, surf, windsurf, freestyle. We’ve been doing it for a long time, and we’re good at it, but it fell into the background; it just became a hobby. We train, we have excellent training conditions, we get away from skiing and everything," Zrinka told Dnevnik Nova TV.

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August 14, 2020 - Croatian skiers Filip Zubcic and Istok Rodes have tested positive for the coronavirus. 

HRT reports that Zubcic and Rodes were soon to start preparations with the rest of the Croatia ski team in Switzerland, but are now forced to spend 14 days in self-isolation.

The Croatian skiers felt their first symptoms during fitness training in Delnice. At first, they thought it was a virus, but were tested just in case.

"I felt a little weaker, had a mild fever and headache and I thought it was some kind of summer virus. However, as the coronavirus is current, and we needed to travel with the rest of the national team, I decided to get tested so as not to endanger everyone else," Zubcic said. 

The new World Cup season should start a week before planned, i.e., October 17, with the women's giant slalom in Sölden, Austria. The day after, a giant slalom is scheduled.

The races were moved forward after the Austrian Ski Federation requested and obtained permission from the International Ski Federation (FIS) to ensure the best possible safety conditions for the competitors.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

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