Crans Montana, Azzurri and Azzurre will pay tribute to victims
The FISI, in agreement with the government and CONI, has announced that the Italian alpine skiing team that will participate in the World Cup races scheduled for the weekend in Crans-Montana, will pay tribute to the Italian boys and girls and other young victims who lost their lives in the tragedy that occurred a month ago in the Swiss resort, by laying a bouquet of flowers in front of the disaster site and gathering in a minute’s silence. The Italian national team’s tribute to the Crans Montana victims will be held tomorrow around 3:30 p.m. in front of the venue.
The Azzurri who will take part in the competitions will compete with mourning on their arms. Other initiatives are also planned in the Swiss resort in memory of the very young victims.
The local organizers and the international federation have decided to celebrate a minute’s silence before the start of the competitions, to cancel all side events and not to place advertisements at the side of the track, focusing the whole event only on the sports competitions. No activities are also planned in the fan zone, while daytime activities in the center of Crans-Montana and the city’s Curling Club will be canceled.
There are eight Italians registered for the women’s World Cup speed double event in the Swiss resort (downhill Friday, Jan. 30 at 10 a.m., super-giant Saturday, Jan. 31 at 11 a.m.), the last races before the Olympic break. They are Federica Brignone, Elena Curtoni, Nadia Delago, Nicol Delago, Sofia Goggia, Roberta Melesi, Laura Pirovano and Asja Zenere.
The 2027 World Championships will be held on the Swiss track: Brignone won on four occasions (always in the combined in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020) and was on the podium a total of nine times, Sofia Goggia won the downhill in 2023, twice in 2021 and 2019, and was third in 2022, Marta Bassino was ahead of them all in the downhill in 2024, Elena Curtoni was second in the super-giant in 2017 and third in the downhill in 2021.
The Swiss team will be the first to win the downhill in 2023.
Pietro Costanzo, the uncle of Chiara Costanzo, the 16-year-old girl who died in the Crans-Montana fire, in recent days made a heartfelt appeal to Fisi, the Italian Winter Sports Federation, which has now been chaired by Flavio Roda since 2012. “Next week there are ski races in Crans-Montana: no athletes present. It would be a beautiful form of protest, of outrage”, he told, interviewed by TgR Lombardy, to whose microphones he also said he was not very confident of being able to obtain justice for the New Year’s Eve tragedy.
