Tomba drops the bombshell: "Thoeni better than Goggia"
Directly from Cortina, Alberto Tomba, the last torchbearer to light the Olympic brazier together with Deborah Compagnoni at the Arch of Peace in Milan, spoke to the microphones of Repubblica about Italy’s great start (already nine medals) at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina. “Yes, great start, we turned on the’Olympics, with Deborah we were really moved”.
“And how nice also to see Gustavo Thoeni handing the torch to Sofia Goggia in Cortina. Of course, it would have been better if she had lit the brazier Gustavo, active athletes better not” added the Italian alpine skiing legend who was personally coached for nine years, from 1989 to 1996, by Thoeni himself.
Sofia Goggia won the bronze medal in the downhill on the Tofane Olympia of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. For the champion from Bergamo, who came in at the finish line behind Breezy Johnson and Emma Aicher, it was her third consecutive Olympic medal in the downhill after gold in PyeongChang in 2018 and silver in Beijing in 2022.
Right after finishing third and winning the bronze medal, the Italian champion said she was a bit’sorry for the result. With a cool mind, complete with a social post, came other, decidedly more positive statements. A kind of thanksgiving towards Cortina, his magical place that, after all, has given him so much satisfaction, including this historic bronze that makes it even more legendary.
“Despite a performance with so many smudges – but always putting my whole heart into it – you gave me a beautiful bronze medal, the third consecutive downhill medal in three consecutive Olympic editions and this constitutes an invaluable value – wrote the Bergamasque -. It was not obvious because of the way things had turned out and yet you wanted to reward me anyway … I am grateful. February 8 is a special day, February 8, 2026 is a day I will never forget, and I firmly believe that in this medal there was also the caress of one of our comrades who passed away three years ago , a comrade who, however, continues to live on in our hearts”.
