Elena Fanchini didn’t make it: a The former Italian skier died at her home in Solato at the age of 37 in the province of Brescia, she had to surrender to the tumor she had defeated but which recurred last summer.
Born in Lovere on April 30, 1985, older sister of Nadia, top level athlete of the new pink avalanche and of Sabrina, Elena won a silver in the downhill in Bormio at the 2005 World Championships when, at not even 20 years old, she finished second in the shoulders of Janica Kostelic. You have taken part in six World Championships and three Olympic Games. In the World Cup she conquered two downhill victories in Lake Louise in 2005 and ten years later in Cortina: a career in which there was no shortage of injuries, from which Elena had always recovered. “
The discovery of the tumor
I want to go skiing again” she said not without emotion when she announced that she had to suspend competitive activity before the Games in Korea. And she had succeeded, since purebred downhill racer which he was, but above all driven by a positivity and a smile that she has never lacked. Not even in the darkest moments. Because after her recovery at the end of 2018, the return to skiing did not last very long: a fall in training at Copper Mountain with a fibula fracture had forced her to give up again in tears. And it felt like a final goodbye. “It was nice to go skiing even for just five days, my goal was to defeat the disease and I succeeded” said the blue.
Courage and tenacity
After all, courage and tenacity were her trademark, because even from that stop she had recovered: surgery and skis on her feet during the Christmas holidays of 2019. “My most beautiful gift” wrote the champion. Very close to her sister Nadia, she had then announced the definitive stop of her career with the strongest blue: a farewell for two that of the Fanchini sisters, who arrived in April 2020, with Nadia having become Alessandro’s mother a few months earlier, and Elena determined to watch to the future without races, but not far from his beloved snow. Last summer, however, the intestinal pain returned and a new and terrible battle has begun for Elena: that the Lombard skier failed to win. She died in her home, at the age of only 37, leaving the world of skiing in shock on the very day when Marta Bassino’s world gold was celebrated in Meribel.
In 2017 his last race
His last race remains the cup superg in Val d’Isere in 2017: then the ordeal, between falls and hope. Until the end. On social networks, the smiling photos with the grandchild, the beloved family, the snow, the campaigns for cancer research. Last January Sofia Goggia had dedicated the victory in Cortina to her: “Eli is for you.” A message that the former blue had received with a smile: “That red bib gave me a smile”.