Italy d'oro in short track! Blue mixed relay unrivaled

Also on the fourth day of competitions in Milano Cortina 2026 Italy can rejoice in a medal: giving another satisfaction to the Italian colors is the mixed relay team in short track, which won the gold medal in Final A, held shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday. The blue team, consisting of Elisa Confortola, Arianna Fontana, Thomas Nadalini and Pietro Sighel, completed the race with a time of 2:39.019, ahead of Canada (Boutin, Sarault, Dandjinou and Roussel) and Belgium (Den Dulk, Hann Desmet, Stijn Desmet and Petre), silver and bronze respectively.

Italy had made it through the quarterfinals with the second best time overall, behind only the Netherlands. In the semifinals the change of pace, with the fastest time among the eight relays involved earned a comfortable qualification to the medal final along with China, Canada and Belgium. In the final act the Chinese disappointed, even finishing in last place, off the podium. Behind the highly-ranked Italy and Canada, however, was Belgium, a real outsider in the final.

Francesco Lucivero

For Italy it is the 10th medal overall in this edition of the games, adding to Francesca Lollobrigida’s gold in speed skating, won in the 3.000 meters, to the silvers of Giovanni Franzoni in the downhill and the Giacomel-Hofer-Wierer-Vittozzi quartet in the 4×6 km mixed biathon, and to the bronzes of Dominik Paris in the men×s downhill, Sofia Goggia in the women×s downhill, Lucia Dalmasso in the snowboard parallel giant, Riccardo Lorello in the 5.000 meters in speed skating, Dominik Fischnaller in luge and of the Italian figure skating team (Rizzo, Grassl, Gutmann, Conti, Macii, Guignard and Fabbri).

Arianna Fontana, among other things, stretches at the top of the list of athletes with the most medals at the Winter Olympic Games, reaching twelve: three golds, four silvers and five bronzes the palmares of the short track legend, who since Turin 2006 has always gone to medal, thus succeeding in six different editions of the Winter Olympic Games.

There continues, then, the blue satisfactions in the home Olympics between Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino Alto-Adige, the three regions hosting the Milan Cortina 2026 events. The review has arrived in the middle of the first week and promises to bring further smiles in the coming days to a truly competitive blue team.