The rust between Sofia Goggia and Federica Brignone is of long standing. She was born, it is said, for a joke of the second unwanted by the other during the 2017 World Championships in St. Moritz. “Sofia is a great athlete, then human discourse is something else”, the words of Brignone shortly before to leave for the Olympics
Adding fuel to the fire is also Maria Rosa Quario, former skier and mother of Federica Brignone: “Sofia Goggia is self-centered and her injury was not so serious”
Arianna Fontana is the most medalist ever at the Olympics, with 11 medals. But in addition to the competitions there is the controversy with the Federation, with the threat of not competing in Milan-Cortina 2026. she She is trained by her husband Anthony Lobello, staying out of the federal training. And she also attacked one of the members of the men’s short track team: “He’s one of those who tried to make me fall in training”
Matteo Marsaglia and Mattia Casse, Italian downhillers, are also great friends. Marsaglia accused the sporting director of Fisi Massimo Rinaldi of simulating a problem to make room in supergiant at Casse, who arrived in Beijing as a reserve because initially excluded from the seven called up
Jannik Sinner did not go to the Olympics, and his refusal caused a sensation. Now that he has formalized the divorce with his historic coach Riccardo Piatti, there are those who claim that it was Piatti who advised him not to participate in the games to better prepare the autumn season of American tournaments. But that forfeit had cost Sinner very dearly, accused of not caring enough for the blue colors
Italian fencing, a mine of talents and medals, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics (2008) experienced the yellow of Andrea Baldini, a positive result and therefore suspended. In his place Andrea Cassarà left. The name of the latter was never made openly, but the complaint (filed) against unknown persons for a plot against him presented by Baldini made one think of the fencer from Brescia. The two later cleared up
When they were on the platform there was no bad blood between Valentina Vezzali and Elisa Di Francisca. The latter on more than one occasion, especially after beating her rival in 2010 at the World Cup in Paris, she accused Vezzali of not knowing how to lose. There was a sensational verbal clash on the platform in 2010, when the two screamed everything between one jab and the other, until they were divided at the end of the match by the coach Cerioni.
The most striking case remains the one that in 1994, the year of the Lillehammer Games, involved the Americans Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, stars of figure skating. On January 6, 1994, in Detroit, Kerrigan was attacked with a baseball bat and seriously injured in the knee by a stranger. The investigation immediately focused on the circle of her greatest opponent, Harding, as principal. Both then went to Lillehammer, where Kerrigan took silver, while her rival went into the shadows. Back in the US, Harding paid a $ 160,000 fine to avoid trial, but she was banned for life by both her own Federation and the ISU.
The jabs between Federica Brignone and Sofia Goggia, the controversy between Arianna Fontana and the federation, the Marsaglia-Casse case: the Beijing 2022 Olympics will also be remembered for the clashes in Italy. But even in previous years, cases have not been rare: here they are