by Giorgio La Bruzzo
MILAN (ITALPRESS) – A record delegation to top. Milan-Cortina surpasses Turin, with Italy that will be present at the Winter Games with 196 athletes (103 men and 93 women), with 12 extra elements (109+75) compared to 2006. An expedition from 16 years of Giada D’Antonio to 45 of Roland Fischnaller, to his seventh consecutive Olympiad, but above all a perfect mix of already established champions and young people of good hopes representing the present and future light blue on snow and ice.
Federica Brignone, back in record time from the injury, and Sofia Goggia – 35 and 33 years old respectively – are the stars of a national Alpine skiing that between Cortina and Bormio is hungry for medals. The Valdostana champion in giant and Bergamo downhill (where he has already won the gold in 2018) will be the reference points of a team where the experience is not lacking (just think of the various Casse, Innerhofer or Paris) but where talents like Franzoni, class 2001 are being made. In the biathlon the ‘old guard’ is represented by Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer, who between cups of the world and Olympic and world medals will recite the role of stars, but how not to point strong on Tommaso Giacomel, 25 years, who is experiencing the season of his consecration.
Federico Pellegrino is at the sunset of his career but if there is someone in the background who can put in the sights a medal, that is the 35-year-old Aosta policeman. And if Roland Fischnaller is the Dorian Gray of snowboarding, the various Bormolini, Felicetti, Moioli, Caffont and Dalmasso arrive at the appointment to five circles in full of their maturity while Ian Matteoli (2005) is a surprise candidate in the big air. The new one we find in the freestyle, with Simone Deromedis (2000) and the brothers Miro (2004) and Flora Tabanelli (2007) that in Milan-Cortina can definitely take off the flight.
The Italian Olimpiade will also be a sort of closure of the circle for Arianna Fontana, flag holder with Amos Mosaner in Cortina. The 35-year-old Valtellinese is the most awarded blue ever at the Winter Games: 11 podiums to five circles conquered during his career, the first of which – only 15 and 10 months – in Turin 2006, the bronze in relay. Now another Olimpiade in the house, with Arianna ready to drive a blue short track patrol reduced from the 8 medals of the Europeans of Tilburg, without the unfortunate Martina Valcepina but with the new levers – Chiara Betti, Thomas Nadalini and Lorenzo Previtali on all – who will try to collect the shadowy witness, perhaps with the 26-year-old Pietro Sighel ready to impose himself also on the Chinese staff.
Staying at the ice, one expects so much from curling nationals, starting from the double mix that in Beijing – with the Mosaner-Constantini duo – brought home a historic gold. In the figure skating spotlights on Sara Conti and Niccolò Macii among the pairs of art (two world bronzes in the palmares) and on Charlene Guignard and Marco Fabbri in the dance, binomium that comes with in her pocket the continental silver of Sheffield. The long run awaits the crossing Francesca Lollobrigida: the almost 35-year-old of Frascati was able to win the world gold after maternity and what better scenario of the Milan Ice Park to add in his personal bench also the Olympic after silver and bronze put to the neck four years ago in Beijing? But the Italian one can also be the Olympiad of Andrea Giovannini and Davide Ghiotto, aware that some trains do not pass twice.
– Photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
