BELLUNO. A photograph jealously guarded for 32 long years. Era 1989 when, during a stage of the Alpine Skiing World Cup, he appeared, in what is now called the VIP lounge, none other than Diego Armando Maradona.
To find him in front of him, surprisingly, in a brightly colored ski suit and in the company of his then wife Claudia Villafane, the Cortinese Barbara Frizzarin, competing with the Italian women’s national team and a bib that read “number 41”.
Barbara Frizzarin was an athlete of the A national ski team for five years, speed specialist. She competed in downhill and super-G even if her career stopped early to make way for what still today is her great passion: teaching skiing to the little ones, as a ski instructor (of the Cortina ski club) and how trainer of the puppy category (age 2009/2010).
Barbara, let’s start from the meeting with Maradona …
“It was an incredible surprise. We were in Las Lenas, Argentina. It was 1989 and we had a World Cup stage there in August. I remember we went to Argentina a few days early to settle in. Today it sounds strange to talk about a Cup race in August, but in those days it was normal. A tent was set up near the finish line, a kind of shed that served as a hospitality area. My companions and I were in there, when at a certain point Diego Armando Maradona entered. He was in the company of his wife and in a ski suit. Maradona knew how to ski! When he saw us, in our Italian overalls, he came towards us. He played for Napoli, for him it was like feeling at home for a moment. He was very kind, always smiling. We were a little embarrassed, visibly excited, but we found the time and above all the courage to take a picture with him. In the photo, in addition to myself, there are Deborah Compagnoni and Monica Martin ».
How did that World Cup experience go on track?
“I don’t have a clear memory, a clear sign that it didn’t go very well,” he replies with a smile.
Maradona’s visit to Las Lenas, it was discovered only a few days later, was accompanied by a veil of mystery …
«We discovered only a few days late that in those days in Italy the news had spread that Maradona had disappeared from Naples and no one knew where he was. Italian football was in turmoil, no one knew that he had returned to Argentina, just as no one knew that he had gone up to Las Lenas to ski and attend the World Cup matches ».
That photo with Maradona represents a beautiful moment in his short career, which was interrupted when he was only 25 years old.
“I was too emotional. I’m from Cortina and I grew up on skis even though I started when I was ten, not very early for a person who grows up in the mountains. I started the adventure with the national teams in 1986, making the process that soon led me to the major one, but the tension played a bad joke on me. I was a bit like the players on Thursdays, who made sparks in a friendly match and then didn’t perform at their best on Sunday. For this reason I decided to give up everything and dedicate myself to teaching. I am a ski instructor and trainer. This last qualification allowed me to work even in these tough months of closures and restrictions. I train the Puppies, a very young category. I have a lot of fun with them ».
As a former athlete of the Italian women’s alpine ski team, what idea did you have of the recent World Championships in Cortina?
“A shame. The feeling that I experienced firsthand is that the lack of the public and of everything that represents the outline of the races has limited the success of the event. It was a muffled World Cup, lived with inevitable detachment from the country. Unfortunately, this is the moment, it is no one’s fault, but with the public and an enlarged participation, in the light of the spectacle offered on the track and the snow present, it would have been something wonderful. I would have liked to have seen my puppies on the track or at the opening ceremony. Maybe next time”.
His family has written important pages of skiing starting from Cortina. Can you tell us any?
«Mine is a family of skiers. My mother Dora Majoni had to say goodbye to the dream of participating in the Olympic Games in Squaw Valley in 1960 because in the last race before the Olympics she broke her tibia in a competition in Val Gardena. My grandmother Lina managed the Col Druscié refuge for fifty years. It was there, in 1956, when Cortina hosted the Olympics. There is a memory, above all, that I have from my childhood and it is linked to my mother and grandmother. Mom helped grandmother in managing the refuge and at 5 pm, with the last ride of the cable car, she returned to the village. My brother Diego and I were waiting for the departure of the cable car to go down the Druscié B on skis. We competed to see who arrived first between me, my brother and the cable car itself. Every day like this: we anxiously awaited the closure of the refuge and the departure of the cable car to give life to that race which, on balance, remains one of the most beautiful of my life ». –