ORToday we see her smiling in memories of the time, but in 1968 Erika Lechner she was little more than a 20-year-old girl braving the wind on the sled slopes. In an era in which women’s sport was still looking for its definitive space, she imposed herself with a silent force, becoming the first Italian woman to win gold at the Winter Olympic Games. But the way that title arrived is worthy of the plot of an old-time movie.
Ghosts at dawn: Erika Lechner’s race at the Grenoble ’68 Winter Olympics
The French edition of the Winter Olympics in Grenoble was marked by unusually mild weather. The heat melted the Villard-de-Lans track, forcing the organizers to make drastic decisions. The athletes were forced to get off at 4 or 5 in the morningin the pitch darkness, before the sun made the ice impassable. «We looked like ghosts in those hours», Erika Lechner would say years later, recalling that ghostly solitude, without an audience, with only the noise of the blades cutting the silence. The race stopped in the third heatas the fourth was canceled due to disastrous weather conditions.
The heated sled skate scandal
In the rankings, Erika was in third place. She seemed destined for an honorable bronzesurpassed by the absolute rulers of the time: the Germans of East Germany. However, in the secret of the pits, something forbidden was happening. A technical commission found that the GDR coaches had quit the sleds near a boiler to heat the skatesan illegal practice that dramatically reduced friction on the ice.
The disqualification of the German athletes was immediate and relentless. Erika Lechner, who had already returned to the hotel convinced that she had concluded her Olympic adventure, learned of the victory only twenty-four hours later. At that moment, in the silence of her room, she officially became number one at the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics.
Erika Lechner, the unusual prize and a life dedicated to the mountains
Erika Lechner’s success did not bring millionaire checks, but a recognition that today makes us smile for its genuineness. Received as a reward two carsone from the federation and one from his local club in Maranza. A curious detail? The athlete did not yet have a driving license. Despite this, her career continued to shine: in 1971 she won European gold and world silver, before ending her career after the 1972 Sapporo Olympics. Having chosen the path of discretion, Erika returned to her mountains, dedicating herself to managing the family hotel in her hometown.
The first of many golds for the Italians at the Winter Olympics
Erika Lechner’s gold marked the opening of a corridor of successes that saw the Italian women enter, decade after decade, among the leaders of the winter movement. Since that 1968, the baton has been passed through the golden eras of Deborah Compagnoni And Stefania Belmondoup to the power of Gerda Weissensteiner – which in 1994 would bring sledding back to the top step – and to the class of Manuela Di Centa.
Today, as we look at the businesses of Sofia Goggia, Federica Brignone and the legendary Arianna Fontanathe link with that pioneer of the Sixties appears even more solid. Erika Lechner was the starting point of a tradition that was able to transform the exception into a constant, a luminous trail that accompanies us towards Milan Cortina 2026 with the awareness that, on that ice, Italian women learned to win a long time ago.
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