FEDERICA

My story as a skier

I was born on July 14, 1990 in Milan. I was born on Bastille Day, a French national holiday, and since I used to celebrate my birthday in France when I was little, where my father worked, I always believed that fireworks were set off in my honour!

I started skiing when I was 1 and a half years old, scampering around with a pair of plastic skis wherever it happened, even in Milan on the carpets of our apartment. At the age of 2, in a small street behind my grandparents’ house in Courmayeur, I laughed like crazy, throwing myself into a dive and imprinting myself on the wall of snow at the end of the “piste”.

In February 1994, leaving for the Lillehammer Olympics where she worked as a journalist, my mother left me in Courmayeur with my grandmother Adriana who enrolled me in ski school: every day they changed my class because I improved visibly!

In July 1996, when I was 6 years old, we moved from Milan to Valle d’Aosta, to La Salle, where I started going to school and above all attending courses at the Courmayeur ski club. In 1997 I won my first race, the social one of the ski club.

I’ve always loved skiing. I would cry with rage when my parents didn’t wake me up in the morning during the Christmas holidays because they thought I needed to rest or because the weather might have been really bad. I didn’t suffer from the cold, the wind or the storm, skiing with fresh snow was crazy fun, instead I didn’t like poles in training at all; however, what exalted me were the races with the stopwatch or any challenge, for example: who can make the longest jump?

It would take too long now to tell you my whole story as a skier, when I was little I thought that winning the world cup was a game, I couldn’t understand how difficult the path would have been instead. My first great satisfaction came in 2005 with the 4th place in the giant Trofeo Topolino national and the consequent qualification for the internationals. The confirmation that she could be good then came to the Italian championships for students, also in that year, with the title of super-G.

My dream has always been to become a complete skier, for this I have tried to practice versatility, with discrete results: in 2009 I became world junior combined champion and in the European Cup I scored points in all disciplines, which also in the World Cup I have already managed to do. A great satisfaction was being able to win in giant, combined and super-G. There is still a long way to go and I’m on my way…