Lorenzo Sommariva takes his lumps

Delusion for the Azzurri as Alessandro Hämmerle was confirmed on the SnowBoardCross Olympic throne. Four years after his Beijing 2022 success, the Austrian repeated himself in Milan Cortina 2026. He crossed the finish line first at the Livigno Snow Park-Cross, overtaking Canada’s Eliot Grondin and the other Austrian Jakob Dusek, who thus completed a podium that had eluded the French, who were protagonists in the morning preliminary round and only fourth with Aidan Chollet, while Loan Bozzolo and Jonas Chollet won in the B final, picking up fifth and sixth places.

Aldo Seghedoni

Eighth was Lorenzo Sommariva, preceded by U.S. veteran Nick Baumgartner, 44 years old in December and still eager to impress. A good sixth in the qualifying round, the Ligurian native of Val d’Aosta followed a parallel path to the American in the various rounds, finishing behind him in the eighth round and ahead of him in the quarters. In the semifinals, the Italian could not find the cue to go beyond fourth place in the heat. Out in the heat, however, were Omar Visintin and Filippo Ferrari, who finished fourth in the same eighth as Sommariva.

Two mistakes slowed Sommariva’s progress: “Unfortunately, I was missing – he acknowledged -: I paid dearly for the two mistakes I made in the semifinal and in the small final. In the semifinal I edged and lost speed; in the small final I made a different mistake, but still a mistake. Now I’m thinking about the mixed team event on Sunday: at the moment I’m trying to live it as best I can. I was in the competition, with good material, and that is a plus. In an event like this the pressure is definitely greater and it certainly doesn&#8221t help: I worked hard on it and tried to come here prepared and I think I did well from that point of view”.

“It didn&#8220t go well, I went out right away with a mistake at the start and I couldn&#8217t play the race: you knew that the start was decisive and with that mistake I lost too much and the race was actually over. Compared to this morning the conditions have changed, the snow is less compact and the visibility is poorer; a situation that I usually like but today I didn”t take advantage of it” Visintin’s comment.