Kostelic to call it a day

Kostelic, the most successful woman Alpine skier in Olympic history, may have made her final appearance of the Turin Games on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old, looking pale and tired after finishing fourth in a foggy slalom under the Sestriere floodlights, told reporters that she was 90 percent certain not to defend her giant slalom title on Friday.

"For this Games, I'm done," she said.

"I really can't (race the giant slalom). It's too much for my body. I tried today and I gave it all and that's it.

"I am sick, I feel really bad. I'm done. There is very little, little chance that I'm going to ski. I have absolutely no power," she added.

However, Kostelic later told Croatian reporters that she would wait until Friday for a definite decision on the final race of the women's programme.

Kostelic won three golds and a silver in Salt Lake City, more than any other woman skier had won at a single Games but had her thyroid gland removed two years ago and has had recurring illness since then.

She opted out of last week's downhill because she had a fever and a high pulse rate.

Kostelic would also have missed the super-G but for a weather delay that moved the race from Sunday to Monday and allowed her to gather strength. She finished second, her sixth Olympic medal after Saturday's combined gold.

Wednesday's race offered her a chance to become the first Alpine skier to take five career golds but she was fifth after the first leg and 0.69 seconds behind eventual winner Anja Paerson of Sweden.

Kostelic said she had considered pulling out then.

"I went to my apartment and I was thinking about whether I should skip the second run," she said. "I figured I had just one more run to go and I'm done."

Even in her moment of triumph on Saturday, Kostelic had said she was not feeling good.

"But I always ski good when I'm sick. I just try to push myself more," she said then. "It was kind of a challenge for me to beat my sickness, to just try to do my best when I'm not feeling good."

Kostelic still has a third overall World Cup title to consider. She leads Paerson by 261 with nine races remaining next month.

A tearful Kosnick pulled out of Wednesday's slalom after losing over three seconds to eventual winner Anja Paerson on the first run.

But it emerges that her participation was always a long-shot after suffering a serious injury just before the start of the Olympics.

"Well, I tore my ACL [Anterior Cruciate Ligament] two weeks ago," the American told Eurosport. "I was going to go home but I decided to wait and see. I tried so hard the last two weeks and I was on crunches until four days ago. But I was hoping, if I was strong enough, that maybe it would be a little fairy tail today. It's ok. I tried as hard as I could. It just wasn't meant to be."

The 30-year-old Alpine veteran confirmed that her season was now over, but is still undecided as to whether or not she will be retiring from the sport.

"I'm going home tomorrow and have surgery on Monday," she said. "For sure it's my last race of the season and I would have loved to walk away with a medal but it took a lot of guts for me to go up there today, so...

"Will I be here next year? I don't know. It was supposed to be my last year but I don't want to end like this."