MILAN (ITALPRESS) – “I could have left at the peak last year, for example. If I ski again is because I like it. It is clear that there are other factors at stake: they are not integral. I am aware that if I want to continue to be a high-level athlete, I will have to make extra sacrifices, like two hours a day of physiotherapy and a different preparation. I will have to suffer: how much am I still willing to suffer? I will see it day by day.” After the extraordinary winter Olympics of Milan-Cortina closed with two ori and the double super-G of Soldeu, Federica Brignone decided to stop. Not a goodbye but a goodbye, with the future that will take shape from time to time. Moreover, at the Games it risked not to be there, but in the end it was the protagonist of a legendary double enterprise. “In the race you play everything in a minute: if you are wrong to put the skis you are “dead”. Here, this has given me an incredible charge – he tells the “Corriere della Sera” – But the impossible challenges for me had already been so many and I have always sought them as a child: to win the first World Cup (2019-2020, ndr) starting only from the giant; at those times I didn’t even compete in the descent, for example”.
“The more complicated the goal is and the more the flame is lit inside me; when it is too easy not the “sento” – emphasizes the 35-year-old Valdostana – The real challenge is with me. What lesson do I take from suffering? No lesson, just a big break. Especially for an active like me: when we’re away with the National I love playing volleyball or practicing other sports. This year I could not and, more than the pain, of which I do not care so much, I weigh these renunciations.” And between investments thinking about what will come after (“Nello ski you don’t earn as in other sports, the differences are huge, although the concept is not clear to everyone. When I finish my career I will have to invest in something, work”) and want to travel, the Brignone knows what it represents, even at marketing level: “It is useless to hide: what I did in sports will remain in history, but I remain the same person as before. I don’t change my way of being because I won. So it is good to become a brand, but that of a person with his feet on the ground.” Certainly popularity “ frightens me. In Milan I wanted to take the subway, they didn’t recommend it. The real challenge will be to continue to live as I have always done, without too much “disturbation”.
– photo IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
