Sofia Goggia is a tough woman, it’s not easy to see her in tears. This time, however, he cries, still wearing his glasses and ski gloves with the tricolor covering his face, immediately after arriving.
She missed the Super-G specialty cup, she had pressure for the Olympics, as much as she said she appreciated her bronze, her third consecutive medal in downhill after the gold in PyeongChang and the silver in Beijing.
He would have liked to make up for it in the Olympic Super-G on his beloved Olympia delle Tofane, but he arrived empty, and it didn’t go as he would have liked.
The scratch of the flag missed in Beijing due to injury and in Milan-Cortina due to balance requirements had been remedied with the lighting of the Olympic brazier, but a bitter aftertaste remained, because Sofia Goggia is someone who loves to win honors on the field.
And in the last few races there had been somewhat mixed results, which could not completely satisfy those who love to play like her.
Today in Lillehammer in the deep north, where there are elves in a place with which the Italian sport has had a great feeling since 1994, Sofia took everything with an exceptional finish: the 63 points to be administered were kept without saving with a technically excellent and safe descent, without “gobbles” as she calls her sometimes excessive risks with her usual self-irony.
Not this time Sofia was perfect, solid, decisive without excesses.
There was certainly a whirlwind of emotions inside her, that Olympic descent troubled by the long interruption at the start and Lindsay Vonn’s brutal fall cannot fail to have left its mark on her. It cannot fail to have left within her the small worm of the need to redeem that moment complicated by external circumstances. Today was the last chance of the season to do so.
But champions are not those who always win but those who know how to handle pressure when needed.
And Sofia has demonstrated many times, including today, that she is an extraordinary champion, not only for the technical aspect but for her rich and intelligent humanity, beyond any reasonable doubt.
