Bente Skari biography
Bente Skari, née Martinsen, (born Sept. 10, 1972, Oslo, Nor.), Norwegian cross-country skier who received quite a few World Cup titles and who dominated worldwide occasions within the late Nineties and early 2000s.
Skari was the daughter of former Olympic ski medalist and International Ski Federation government Odd Martinsen. Although she skied through the 1992 season, she was not a direct hit on the World Cup circuit. She moved up through the 1994 Olympic season and received her first World Cup race in December 1997, nevertheless it was not till 1998, when she received a bronze medal on the Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, and completed the World Cup season quantity two in factors, that she made an impression. She went on to win the 1999 and 2000 World Cup general titles. In mid-2000 she married Geir Skari, the 1996 National Collegiate Athletic Association cross-country ski champion for the University of Denver.
Skari missed the 2001 World Cup general title (she got here in second), however she was virtually unbeatable through the 2002–03 World Cup cross-country snowboarding season: she entered 17 World Cup races and received 14, and he or she additionally received the 2002 and 2003 World Cup general titles. She went two-for-two on the 2003 Nordic world championships earlier than dropping out due to sickness.
Early in her profession, Skari was virtually one-dimensional—sturdy in basic approach (each skis in ready tracks) however considerably slower in skating (freestyle or free approach, the place skiers kick off to the facet like a velocity skater). She was onerous to beat, nonetheless, in skating sprints, over a 1.5-km course the place 4 skiers duel every warmth. “I don’t have confidence in the longer skate races,” she defined, “but when someone is right there with me, I don’t want to lose and somehow I go faster, even skating.” Coincidentally, in her closing season Skari emerged as an excellent skater too.
Skari retired in 2003 after greater than a decade of World Cup racing—with 42 wins (second all-time amongst girls) and 4 World Cup titles, in addition to 5 world championship gold medals and 5 Olympic medals, together with a 10-km gold on the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. “My willpower and motivation are no longer strong enough to make me want to go on,” she instructed a farewell press convention. “I’m not the kind of athlete who does things halfheartedly.”