Great anticipation for Sofia Goggia’s words: will she shed light on the mystery?

On Tuesday, the end-of-season Italian Winter Sports Federation Media Day will be held in Milan. A truly brilliant season by Italian athletes, who racked up the laurels. Athletes who medaled in Milan Cortina 2026, fourth-place finishers in the same event and winners of the 2025/26 World Cups will participate. There is great anticipation for words from Sofia Goggia, who won Olympic bronze in downhill and the World Cup in super-G. The Bergamasque outfielder may or may not confirm a change of coach: the name of Gianluca Rulfi is being hotly tipped.

Among the expected protagonists at the Media Day is also Laura Pirovano, who has had a simply extraordinary year: the woman from Spiazzo Rendena in Trentino won the overall downhill World Cup, becoming the first female skier from Trentino to win a crystal cup and the fourth Italian ever, after Isolde Kostner (2001 and 2002), Sofia Goggia (2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023) and Federica Brignone (2025). The most exhilarating moment of her season came in Val di Fassa, where she scored her first two World Cup victories in the downhill, edging out her rivals by just one hundredth of a second on both occasions. “I’m looking forward to relaxing and trying to give emotional meaning to what this season has been for me. An unforgettable winter, which I will carry inside me for the rest of my life,” said the Italian skier.

Federica Brignone, the protagonist of a feat that has something incredible about it, will also be present at the Media Day: despite the very serious injury she suffered ten months earlier, the Tiger of La Salle managed to win two Olympic golds at Milan Cortina 2026, in the super-G and the giant slalom on the Tofane Olympics, bringing her Olympic list of medals to five overall. “The two golds in Cortina came completely unexpectedly, far beyond what I could have imagined,” explained the champion from Valle d’Aosta. “Putting back on skis had been a complicated and at the same time beautiful journey, but I never really thought I could come back and win. At 35, Brignone admitted that reasoning about the future is still ongoing: “Now the priority is to resume treatment. I’ve rested my leg, but there is still a need for attention and further treatment in order to really recover.”

On the Goggia front, the champion from Bergamo also recently earned a degree in political science from Luiss University in Rome, discussing a thesis focused on propaganda and soft power in the history of the Olympic Games, from the ancient world to the Milan Cortina 2026 edition. “At the end of March I handed in my thesis. Today the committee met to assign the grade, and in June there will be the graduation ceremony. Then I will celebrate,” said the skier. Despite her satisfaction with the sports results, Goggia admitted some regrets: “It was a season in some respects below expectations. In training I had expressed a very high level in three disciplines, but I was not always able to repeat those performances in competition.”

The possible change of technical staff for Goggia represents one of the most discussed scenarios in the Italian skiing world. The bond between the Bergamasque skier and Rulfi has been consolidated over the years, well beyond the tasks strictly related to the federal technical direction: already in January 2024, after her fifth place in Kronplatz that had broken a six-year taboo in the giant slalom, Goggia had declared, “I have to thank my coach Luca Agazzi, who took me and led me by the hand in this technical path together with Dt Rulfi.” A concept reiterated again in January 2025, after her fifth place in the giant in Kranjska Gora: “I want to thank my coach Luca Agazzi with whom I took an important path under the supervision of dt Gianluca Rulfi.” In this scenario, Luca Agazzi, who has been the champion’s technical point of reference in recent seasons, may no longer be part of the team.

A possible transition of Rulfi to the role of Goggia’s personal coach would inevitably imply a major void in the leadership of the national team, at a time when the Italian women’s movement has reached levels of absolute excellence. The FISI will be called upon to carefully consider how to redraw the balance at the top of Italian alpine skiing, also taking into account the situation of Marta Bassino, another pillar of the women’s sector, who after a fracture of the tibial plateau in her left leg that forced her to miss the entire season including the Olympics, resumed skiing only at the end of March in a rehabilitation session in Limone Piemonte right along with Rulfi and coach Thierry Marguerettaz.