It's almost with a full second that Anna Ottosson won her very first World Cup race on the very demanding GS course at Cortina d'Ampezzo, where she dominated both runs. Since she came 3rd at Are in January 1998, the skier from Froesoen who enjoys difficult conditions was expected to demonstrate her potential in that events. After a good season start at Tignes, were she was 2nd as in Sierra Nevada during the 1999 World Cup Finals, she was 6th at Copper Mountain despite the flat course yet she skied out at Serre Chevalier later on. She lost part of her confidence and her momentum in this crash and had to wait mid January to find back all her aggressiveness on course. Yet she could not retain that form afterwards and had to be content with her 4th place in the finals GS standings, a ranking which can't really satisfy this ambitious, smart and determined competitor.

Her trainers like to compare her to the great Ingemar Stenmark, because she is as passionate, even obsessed, by perfection and ski racing as the best gate skier in the history of the Alpine World Cup.

At Cortina, she became Sweden's third giant slalom winner in women's World Cup history - its first since Pernilla Wiberg's last success in that event back in 1992.

Her serviceman Charlie Laband too was happy that day after having fought hard to convince her to use a new model of racing skis produced by Dynastar after Joel Chenal's triumph at Alta Badia. Anna has a reputation of being pretty stubborn and it's not easy to have her changing her mind. But it should also help her to reach more summits in future medals races. She was 7th and 10th at Nagano and Vail in 1998 and 1999.