Sofia Goggia, her former teammate on the national team, speaks out about fans’ concerns
Sofia Goggia’s condition remains one of the central topics of discussion among alpine skiing fans. The champion from Bergamo has resumed training after the physical problems she experienced during the training camp in Ushuaia, Argentina, where a series of debilitating symptoms caused by two viral infections forced her to interrupt her preparation and return to Italy early.
Her goal is to be ready for the giant slalom in Killington, scheduled for November 28, to regain her confidence in competition and arrive at the season’s first downhill race—on December 11 in Beaver Creek—at the peak of her form. Francesca Marsaglia, a former member of the Italian national alpine skiing team and now a television commentator, also spoke on the subject in an interview with Fanpage on the eve of the new World Cup season.
“I found her to be very weak: since late July, they hadn’t understood the cause of this weakness and the side effects she experienced in Argentina. Her body, however, forced her to stop at a time that isn’t all that bad. She told me she’d had a great summer of off-piste training. When she trains well off-piste, she has solid strength in Super-G and downhill. I think the goal was to become very competitive again in downhill, where she’d lost a bit of ground, beyond the Olympic bronze. Someone like her has to fight for the World Cup.”
According to Marsaglia, the main obstacle won’t be so much the return to competition as it will be managing her energy on a daily basis. Goggia herself recently mentioned alternating between days when she seems to feel better and others marked by severe exhaustion. “The challenge will be managing her energy: one day she feels good and pushes herself in the gym, the next day she’s completely wiped out. It’s different from injuries. If she can take it in a positive light, I don’t see the timing of her hiatus as all that negative, coming after an intense Olympic year in which she expected more.”
