Sofia Goggia vents: "I was so scared, now I feel exhausted but proud"

Sofia Goggia in a long post on Instagram recounted her last three not-so-easy weeks, following the Olympics where she performed below her expectations: “Often doubts creep into the meanders of our heads, slowly creep in, make their way through our weaknesses magnifying them and, as much as you want to turn your thoughts and emotions elsewhere, they start to dwell in you just when you wouldn’t need them; my last weeks have been like that. I’ve been tremendously afraid of not making it.”

Before the last SuperG, the ghosts reappeared: “What if I make a mistake? What if I should make a mistake, going out, while maybe leading? What if, instead, I should go down more calmly and fail to get in by seven with Robinson winning? “You do yours and do it all right,” I told myself at the start. I crossed the red finish line, green light; good riddance. My heart was already pounding for the race, but when I saw that six-tenths lead, I felt it explode in my chest: I did it, I told myself.”

“I burst into tears and in those tears there was not only the contentment of that result but all the emotional load that this complicated season has brought with it: tension, stress, high expectations, atavistic fear of injury just before the Olympics at home, loneliness, good results alternating with less satisfactory results, criticism often excessive and sometimes even unjustified…”

“It is true: I in primis, along with all the people who have worked with me and for me (whom I thank!) we expected different results for this season. However, things don’t always turn out the way we would like them to; the important thing is to still continue to do your best with what you have, even when situations are adverse, complicated and difficult.
It is what I have always done and what I will continue to do: in Sport as well as in Life.”

“Although I feel exhausted right now, although the season has not been entirely convincing in some aspects, I can only be proud and proud that I managed to bring home an Olympic Bronze in Downhill and this SuperG Cup, never achieved so far in my career. As soon as I get home I will put it on the shelf next to the other four I have achieved in the past years and .. at the thought, I am already smiling. Thank you all.”