Winter Olympics, all the blues in Beijing: 118 Italians competing

The inaugural ceremony scheduled for February 4 opens another edition of the Olympics tormented by the Covid pandemic: in the Beijing bubble there will be 118 blue athletes (46 girls, 72 boys), 4 fewer than the last edition, with the ‘goal to do better than in PyeongChang 2018, when Italy won 10 medals.

Compared to four years ago, in Italian skiing there is a higher quality than the blue team of the World Cup, with a high end – that of Goggia, Paris, Brignone, Vinatzer, Bassino and De Aliprandini – and some good athletes who can aspire at once. Although the names of men’s alpine skiing (7) will be announced tomorrow at the end of the Schladming night slalom, it is already known that hopes all converge on Dominik Paris downhill and Super G, with De Aliprandini (giant), Vinatzer and Razzoli (slalom) ready to exploit. In the women’s, headlights and fingers crossed on Sofia Goggia, struggling with yet another injury. The queen of the downhill, unbeatable in the season, has started her race against time to be at the start of the Olympic race. Brignone downhill, Super G, giant and perhaps combined, Bassino, Curtoni, the sisters Nadia and Nicol Delago and Marsaglia our other arrows.

Men (7): –
Women (9): Marta Bassino, Federica Brignone, Elena Curtoni, Nadia Delago, Nicol Delago, Lara Della Mea, Sofia Goggia, Anita Gulli, Francesca Marsaglia.

CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING (12)
Men (6): Francesco De Fabiani, Davide Graz, Federico Pellegrino, Maicol Rastelli, Giandomenico Salvadori, Paolo Ventura.
Women (6): Anna Comarella, Martina Di Centa, Caterina Ganz, Greta Laurent, Cristina Pittin, Lucia Scardoni.

BIATHLON (10)
Men (5): Didier Bionaz, Thomas Bormolini, Tommaso Giacomel, Lukas Hofer, Dominik Windisch.
Women (5): Michela Carrara, Samuela Comola, Federica Sanfilippo, Lisa Vittozzi, Dorothea Wierer.

COMBINED NORDIC (4)
Men: Iacopo Bortolas, Raffaele Buzzi, Alessandro Pittin, Samuel Costa.

JUMP (2)
Men (1): Giovanni Bresadola.
Women (1): Jessica Malsiner.

SNOWBOARD (17)
Men (11): Daniele Bagozza, Edwin Coratti, Mirko Felicetti, Filippo Ferrari, Roland Fischnaller, Lorenzo Gennero, Emiliano Lauzi, Tommaso Leoni, Lorenzo Sommariva, Omar Visintin, Louis Philip Vito III.
Women (6): Sofia Belingheri, Caterina Carpano, Lucia Dalmasso, Francesca Gallina, Michela Moioli, Nadya Ochner.

FREESTYLE (5) Men (2): Simone Deromedis, Leonardo Donaggio.
Women (3): Silvia Bertagna, Lucrezia Fantelli, Jole Galli.

SHORT TRACK (10)
Men (5): Andrea Cassinelli, Yuri Confortola, Tommaso Dotti, Pietro Sighel, Luca Spechenhauser.
Women (5): Arianna Fontana, Cynthia Mascitto, Arianna Sighel, Arianna Valcepina, Martina Valcepina.

SPEED SKATING (7)
Men (6): David Bosa, Davide Ghiotto, Andrea Giovannini, Michele Malfatti, Jeffrey Rosanelli, Alessio Trentini.
Women (1): Francesca Lollobrigida.

FIGURE SKATING (9)
Men (5): Filippo Ambrosini, Marco Fabbri, Daniel Grassl, Matteo Guarise, Matteo Rizzo.
Women (4): Nicole Della Monica, Rebecca Ghilardi, Charlene Guignard, Lara Naki Gutmann.

CURLING (6)
Men (5): Sebastiano Arman, Mattia Giovanella, Simone Gonin, Amos Mosaner, Joel Thierry Retornaz.
Women (1): Stefania Constantini.

BOB (9)
Men (8): Patrick Baumgartner, Lorenzo Bilotti, Eric Fantazzini, Robert Mircea, Josè Delmas Obou, Alex Pagnini, Mattia Variola, Alex Verginer.
Women (1): Giada Andreutti.

Sledge (8)
Men (5): Leon Felderer, Dominik Fischnaller, Kevin Fischnaller, Simon Kainzwaldner, Emanuel Rieder.
Women (3): Verena Hofer, Andrea Voetter, Nina Zoeggeler.

SKELETON (3)
Men (2): Amedeo Bagnis, Mattia Gaspari.
Women (1): Valentina Margaglio.