Paralympic: Bertagnolli launches Italy at the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Spain

The Paralympic Alpine Ski World Championships will take place from 19 to 29 January in Espot, Spain. Bringing the blue colors to the top will be Giacomo Bertagnolli, accompanied by the guide Andrea Ravelli, who collected four gold medals in as many races in the last stage of the World Cup in Switzerland. Twenty-four years old on January 18 Giacomo has always been a sportsman: “I started practicing sports from an early age, mainly activities related to the mountains since I was born and raised in Cavalese, in Trentino, such as climbing and mountain biking in the summer , alpine skiing and ice hockey in winter”. Up until the age of 12, the latter was the sport he practiced most assiduously: “I liked it a lot, but as I got older the game became faster and faster and I had a lot of trouble following the puck. To win games you always had to be on the spot and very often I ended up on the bench. At that point I told myself it would be better to try to do something else”. Giacomo has been visually impaired since birth due to an atrophy of the optic nerve: “My father is a healthy carrier and I have a unique genetic variation in the world called OPA 1. I see half a tenth from my left eye and almost a tenth from my right one” .

Journal

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Just at that time, a newspaper article appeared that spoke of Paralympic sports: “Once we became aware of this world, we informed ourselves and got in touch with FISIP (Italian Paralympic Winter Sports Federation, ed). From the age of thirteen until the first world cup race I did most of the things by myself. My parents dedicated their time to me, financed my travels and I looked for a person who could give me a hand as a guide. It was all like this, a bit random”, says Giacomo. “The results started to arrive, I had fun and I had more and more desire to improve, from there I understood that I would do all this in a competitive way”. In Spain it will be his fifth world championship as a Paralympic athlete: “The world championships have always gone well, I’ve always arrived quite ready, this year I was more stationary than in previous years because I came from a rather tiring Paralympic Games, I got sick several times and I had a slight injury at the end of December. I could have been in even better shape -Giacomo explains- but the last few races done give me hope and give me a good boost to go there convinced. The goal -he continues- is to do well, as I’ve always done, then logically the results, if you’re mentally prepared and physically ready, should come. I’ve never competed in Spain, I don’t know the place, you’ll need to study the tracks well and see the snow conditions”. The message is clear: “Let’s go full to do well and give prestige to the Italian tricolor”. The history of Paralympic alpine skiing passes through him. With 4 golds, 3 silvers and a bronze, Giacomo managed to cover all disciplines of alpine skiing at the Games, from Super G to slalom, passing through the super combined. “The Paralympics is something fantastic and special. Coming from competitions, even international ones, one feels that it is an event of another level. In 2018 we arrived there with Fabrizio (Casal, ed) without expectations and it was beautiful. Winning four medals, including two golds, was an indescribable feeling. That tranquility we had, given by the fact of being rookies, I think made the difference”. In the meantime there was also the high school exam: “The year of the Pyeongchang Games I had exams, I attended the socio-economic high school, and I was absent for some time because of the competitions and the Paralympics. It was an absurd year, in less than a month I recovered all the questions and checks and I graduated with 82 cents”.

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Then the passing of the baton between guides: “We were in the same school with Fabrizio and we shared a lot. The role of the guide, especially in alpine skiing, is fundamental, especially if you want to achieve certain results. Trust and harmony are very important. Now with Andrea we are trying to improve as much as we can, he was a top-level skier and having someone up front who always encourages you to do better is very important”. A year ago the Games in Beijing, he confirmed it: “Having to confirm and improve is always more difficult than establishing oneself, especially if you have won 4 medals. We managed to reconfirm ourselves, winning 2 golds and 4 medals this time, also having a very competitive rival like the Austrian Aigner. After this Paralympics I can say that I have 5 medals out of 5 disciplines and this is a source of pride for me”. Beijing 2022 will also have the honor of being a flag bearer: “Bringing the Italian flag to the opening ceremony is a very strong emotion. Too bad that the ceremonies always put them on the evening before the downhill, so as soon as the parade was over we had to go back to the village which was a few hours away. Handing over the flag to the President of the Republic is something that happens to very few athletes and I am very pleased to be part of them. I was almost more agitated about carrying the flag and making it wave in the right way than doing the races (smiles, ed)”. In the life of an athlete there are many sacrifices and many people with whom they share: “I thank my guides, starting with Marcellino, my first coach, Achille who followed me up to my first victories in the World Cup, Fabrizio who he accompanied in many successes and in the first Paralympics and Andrea, with whom I am sharing a lot. Probably without them these medals would not have arrived. My family, who have always been close to me and my girlfriend who has supported me throughout this journey”. Skiing, like all sports, is fundamental in life and helps to overcome one’s limits: “Skiing allows me to compete with myself. Trying to improve yourself every day, having goals and exceeding them is very important. Sport then helped me to be much more independent than many other people with my same pathology. Getting by and not always having to ask for someone’s help makes you feel freer. It’s also a nice way to travel and tour the world – she says with a smile – which I really like and which this sport allows you to do ”. Giacomo also had the honor of leading the way in Madonna di Campiglio on the occasion of a standard competition: ”I think I’m the only athlete, at least in alpine skiing, to have had this honour. The track was 3-tre and it was a slalom race. It was great to do both heats, it’s a completely different event and I hope that slowly the Paralympic world can also get closer to this. There is a lot of talk about uniting the Paralympic world with the normal one, about eliminating differences, I hope we will start soon”. Milan-Cortina the dream in the drawer: “It is no longer a question of a distant Paralympics, without an audience, but the Games at home, with family and friends to support you, in addition to the many fans. I don’t know the Cortina slopes well, I hope they will give us the opportunity to train. I also hope to be able to give greater visibility to the whole movement. Playing at home is another story, I’m very happy to have this opportunity and I’ll arrive ready to improve on the results in Pyeongchang and Beijing”.