Zan KOSIR
Aug 31, 2018·Alpine Snowboard
Zan Kosir did his first turns on a snowboard when he was 12 years old, right at the local hill of his home town Trzic after he had seen some kids riding during a family holiday stay in Val Gardena, Italy.
Impressed by the freedom on snow only a board can offer, he started to ride more and more which finally opened the door to competitive racing.
He attended a race in Slovenia powered by Swatch and won straight away, and his path was paved.
As Trzic, famous for alpine and nordic skiing, was missing a snowboard club he joined the one in Bled, close to his home, where he met some of the best riders of Slovenia.
In 2002, Dejan Kosir, on of the most decorated alpine snowboarders of Slovenia of all time and no relative to Zan took him to a training session in Kranjska Gora.
The direct comparison with one of the world's best and the fact that he was close in skills made him believe to be successful on international level.
Just one year later, he competed in his first ever World Cup (Maribor 2003).
Although he was blessed with talent, it took him quite a while to place on the podium for the first time finishing third in the PSL staged in Arosa, Switzerland back in 2008.
Although he was able to add another third rank to his belt one year later at Kreischberg, Austria Kosir had to stay patient and work on his skills.
And the patience paid off. Kosir had his breakthrough in the 2013 season with a full set of medals as third and first of the Bad Gastein events (his so far sole victory) and a second rank in Rogla.
Ever since, he has been a major podium thread in both, PSL and PGS - a fact which he underlined by placing second three times in the 2014 (Carezza, Bad Gastein and Rogla).
In addition, he won Bronze (PGS) and Silver (PSL) at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games becoming the first ever Slovenian to win an Olympic medal in a snowboard event.
And unlike some of the riders who podiumed at the Sochi Olympics, Kosir kept the momentum into the next season, earning another silver at the Kreischberg world championships (PGS).
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