Elena Fanchini, sister Nadia’s poignant account: ‘I never left her’

Former Italian skier Nadia Fanchini: “Elena was a fighter, she never complained.”

Nadia Fanchini at the microphones of Corriere della Sera recounted the last moments with her sister Elena Fanchini, who died at the age of 37 after a long battle with cancer. “My life is full of memories of her. We were always very close, we always lived together on the track but also in the illness. We never left each other, Elena was our world, she was my sister,” explained the former Italian skier.

“Now it will be difficult for us. She was a fighter, she never complained. She had a great will to live, she gave everything, she never gave up until the end. But unfortunately he won. We discovered the recurrence and it was hard, because she suffered so much. Because she could not control the pain. It was a pain for us to see her in so much pain. To see this ugly evil that was destroying her.”

“‘My head is there, but my body is not there,’ she would tell me. It’s 2023 and unfortunately there is still no cure for cancer. She was also a testimonial for Airc and we believe in research, we have to make sure that we can beat this disease.”

The last conversation, “I told her, ‘You are the most important person in my life, I love you so much.’ And she replied, ‘I know.'”