Italy with its 118 athletes is ready to take off for China where the XXIX Winter Olympic Games will be held in Beijing and the nearby mountains from 4 to 20 February. The definition of the blue expedition came on Tuesday with the inclusion of the seven men of alpine skiing. Called up the ‘jets’ Dominik Paris, Christof Innerhofer and Matteo Marsaglia, the gigantist vice world champion Luca De Aliprandini, and the slalomists Giuliano Razzoli, Tommaso Sala and Alex Vinatzer.
On the day of the decision to change the flag bearer from Sofia Goggia to Michela Moioli, the Italy Team that will be competing in Beijing is the third largest in history. Better only Turin 2006 with 179 Azzurri (but there were the two ice hockey teams who subsequently no longer qualified) and PyeongChang 2018 with 122.
The oldest blue of the team is Roland Fischnaller, 41, an icon of Italian snowboarding, in his sixth Olympic participation and never on the podium. The youngest is Leonardo Donaggio, 18, a promise of freestyle. The older woman Silvia Bertagna, born in 1986, freestyle specialist, while the younger Lara Naki Gutmann, born in November 2002, who will be at the start in the figure skating team event.
Three artistic surnames, Nina Zoeggeler, 20 years old, sled runner, at the first Olympics and daughter of the great Armin (6 Olympic medals, two of which gold), Martina Di Centa, 21 years old, cross-country skier, daughter of Giorgio (and granddaughter di Manuela), Olympic gold medalist in the 50 kilometers and in the Nordic ski relay in Turin 2006 and the biathlete Michela Carrara (24), grandson of Pieralberto Argento in the individual in Nagano 1998.
THESE ALL 118 BLUES
BIATHLON (10) – Men (5): Didier Bionaz, Thomas Bormolini, Tommaso Giacomel, Lukas Hofer, Dominik Windisch. Women (5): Michela Carrara, Samuela Comola, Federica Sanfilippo, Lisa Vittozzi, Dorothea Wierer. BOB (9) – Men (8): Patrick Baumgartner, Lorenzo Bilotti, Eric Fantazzini, Robert Mircea, Josè Delmas Obou, Alex Pagnini, Mattia Variola, Alex Verginer. Women (1): Giada Andreutti.
NORDIC COMBINED (4): Iacopo Bortolas, Raffaele Buzzi, Alessandro Pittin, Samuel Costa. FREESTYLE (5) – Men (2): Simone Deromedis, Leonardo Donaggio. Women (3): Silvia Bertagna, Lucrezia Fantelli, Jole Galli.
JUMP (2) – Men (1): Giovanni Bresadola. Women (1): Jessica Malsiner.
ALPINE SKIING (16) – Men (7): Luca De Aliprandini, Christof Innerhofer, Matteo Marsaglia, Dominik Paris, Giuliano Razzoli, Tommaso Sala, Alex Vinatzer. Women (9): Marta Bassino, Federica Brignone, Elena Curtoni, Nadia Delago, Nicol Delago, Lara Della Mea, Sofia Goggia, Anita Gulli, Francesca Marsaglia.
CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING (12) – Men (6): Francesco De Fabiani, Davide Graz, Federico Pellegrino, Maicol Rastelli, Giandomenico Salvadori, Paolo Ventura. Women (6): Anna Comarella, Martina Di Centa, Caterina Ganz, Greta Laurent, Cristina Pittin, Lucia Scardoni.
SKELETON (3) – Men (2): Amedeo Bagnis, Mattia Gaspari. Women (1): Valentina Margaglio. SLEDGING (8) – Men (5): Leon Felderer, Dominik Fischnaller, Kevin Fischnaller, Simon Kainzwaldner, Emanuel Rieder. Women (3): Verena Hofer, Andrea Voetter, Nina Zoeggeler.
SNOWBOARD (17) – Men (11): Daniele Bagozza, Edwin Coratti, Mirko Felicetti, Filippo Ferrari, Roland Fischnaller, Lorenzo Gennero, Emiliano Lauzi, Tommaso Leoni, Lorenzo Sommariva, Omar Visintin, Louis Philip Vito III. Women (6): Sofia Belingheri, Caterina Carpano, Lucia Dalmasso, Francesca Gallina, Michela Moioli, Nadya Ochner.
CURLING (6) – Men (5): Sebastiano Arman, Mattia Giovanella, Simone Gonin, Amos Mosaner, Joel Thierry Retornaz. Women (1): Stefania Constantini.
FIGURE SKATING (9) – Men (5): Filippo Ambrosini, Marco Fabbri, Daniel Grassl, Matteo Guarise, Matteo Rizzo. Women (4): Nicole Della Monica, Rebecca Ghilardi, Charlene Guignard, Lara Naki Gutmann.
SPEED SKATING (7) – Men (6): David Bosa, Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini, Michele Malfatti, Jeffrey Rosanelli, Alessio Trentini. Women (1): Francesca Lollobrigida.
SHORT TRACK (10) – Men (5): Andrea Cassinelli, Yuri Confortola, Tommaso Dotti, Pietro Sighel, Luca Spechenhauser. Women (5): Arianna Fontana, Cynthia Mascitto, Arianna Sighel, Arianna Valcepina, Martina Valcepina.