YANQING. Snowboarding ensures Italy the eleventh medal in Beijing 2022, one more than those won at PyeongChang 2018. The merit goes to the determination of the mixed cross team, a specialty at the Olympic debut, which saw the blue flag bearer Michela Moioli and bronze in the individual Omar Visintin win silver, beaten by 20 cents only by American veterans Lindsey Jacobellis and Nick Baumgartner, the oldest athletes in the discipline, with their combined 76 years and 9 participations in the Games.
In the heavy snowfall at the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, the Azzurri embellished the test thanks to the fourth place for Lorenzo Sommariva and Caterina Carpano: the Italy 2 team finished in fourth place, behind Canada (Eliot Grondin and Meryeta Odine), because there were two Italian teams in the final.
Michela Moioli, with her face still bruised from the fall of Thursday 10 February in the individual cross final, has shown that she has an iron will despite having seen the Olympic confirmation fade, recovering after both physical and moral blows received on Thursday and finding a very precious medal.
She, a very close friend of Sofia Goggia, thanked her teammate, Omar Visintin from Merano, another example of great determination given that, just on 10 December, the South Tyrolean winner of a World Cup, flew off the track during a Cup test. in Montafon, Austria, reporting a head injury, dislocated left elbow and a tendon rupture.
“I had to give everything and Omar dragged me, I followed him”, said Moioli at the end of the race and, thinking back to the missed final on Thursday, he cut it short: “That day went like this”, while still showing disappointment. “It was the first time of this race at the Olympics and in the end it is a chance for an extra medal – added the snowboarder from Bergamo – I was very tense, but I had Omar who, in addition to starting in front, dragged me with his tranquility and positivity, and I just tried to have a good race: a good test for me too because after the other day I was down. These two days I did physiotherapy on my ankles, for the after-effects of the fall in the single, then Omar did the bronze and I am gassed a lot.
Visintin, for his part, said he was used to seeing “Michela racing. It was nice to race together”, once again showing harmony. “I would have signed up for the silver and the bronze medals – the personal balance of the blue -. After the individual competition I knew that the team event would have been a great chance for a medal, especially with Michela who is in great shape. last month and a half to be here after the injury; the doctors told me I would make it and I tried to live it well, even if I wasn’t 100%. Surely losing a full month of training has me I removed strength in my arm and upper body. I used it to rest that month. “
Moioli, in the semifinal, had folded with a good advantage Jacobellis who, having established herself in the individual on February 10, had managed to return to the Olympic podium sixteen years after the silver mockery of the 2006 Turin Games, which became a catchphrase, like her told. “The first objective has been achieved: we have exceeded the number of medals won in Pyeongchang”, she commented for her part. the president of Coni, Giovanni Malagò, recalling that the result “we did it thanks to a discipline like snowboarding where we became a world power” thanks to the loot of a silver and a bronze. The last medal “represents for our standard-bearer Michela an extraordinary revenge after the individual competition of the other day and for Omar a wonderful confirmation of his great abilities”, added Malagò who had words of thanks also for the couple from Italia 2 “Congratulations to Caterina and Lorenzo who fought until the end. This Italy can give us other joys”, he concluded.