It takes Sofia Goggia a moment to look her bronze in the eyes, the third Olympic medal in three editions: gold, silver and bronze from Beijing to here, and tell her, with a slightly crooked smile: «Yes, not bad». He has never hidden that he dreams of gold on his Olympia, his most loved track.
But with maturity Sofia has acquired wisdom: she knows that a medal at home has intrinsic value and she knows that the bad fall of her friend Lindsay Vonn took away some of her inner security. 41 years oldwho perhaps here, fresh from injury, asked too much of her battered body. Sofia skied, with some mistakes, with a held heart, she who has memories of injuries and pain, but showing that she has better potential.
It’s not over, but Milano Cortina 2026 has already given her the honor of lighting the brazier, after taking away her role as standard bearer, which she had already been appointed for four years due to injury. Now the bronze adds the third color to his very personal Olympic career podium. There is already enough to go down in history but one fine day, Thursday the 12th, we will see if that bit of handbrake in Super-G will be released.
Meanwhile Sofia is Sofia, a champion of great personality, a real, transparent woman, without glossy superstructures: a rare example of a very authentic star, who knows how to write and say the things she thinks, right things in general without being inappropriate, but also without hiding behind the conveniences of pure manners. Altruistic too: when there was a need to support her rival Federica Brignone who was very seriously injured she was there. Bella dedicates it to her friend Elena Fanchini, who passed away due to illness in 2023.
Sofia Goggia deserves that this Olympics of hers doesn’t end here. But the downhill race at the Games, in its imperfection, also demonstrates something important. Sofia, the indomitable and courageous Goggia, has grown up: she no longer takes risks just to take risksat the cost of what he self-deprecatingly calls “goggiate”, naive mistakes of enthusiasm that can hurt. Only the brave is his motto, only the brave. And she certainly doesn’t lack courage, even if she now knows how to distinguish it from recklessness. The Olympians take and give, parallel snowboarding, which hoped for something more than Lucia Dalmasso’s bronze, teaches today. Sofia, who has already been there, knows this.
