Italian
The ANNOTICO
Report
Any Serious
Winter Olympic Historian or Aficionado, consider Hockey
bruising, Skating cute, and Alpine Skiing fast and daring, and Sled
sports a nice ride. Nordic Skiing is
recognized as the "Crown Jewels" . And the Jewel in
the Crown is..... the 4 man x 10 km Cross Country
Relay.
The origins of
cross country, or Nordic skiing go back at least 5,000 years when the technique
was used as a means of winter transportation. Competition began in
In Norway, The
Norwegians are "fanatic" about Nordic skiing and Cross Country is
treated with the reverence that baseball receives in the US and Soccer in
Europe.
Nordic Skiing
and especially the 4x10 Relay are tied into the Norweigian self
esteem, and the Norwegians dominated the
Event every Winter Olympics. But starting in 1984 the Italians
decided this was a Worthy and sufficiently Lofty Goal, and started on
their quest.
In 1994 the
Winter Olympics were going to be held in
This 1994
4x10km Nordic Relay was such a hard fought race, so closely contested
every step of the way, with less than a meter separating the Gold and
Silver winners, and was such an UPSET with the unheralded Italians Winning,
that is simply referred to as "the Race"!!!!!
The Stadium
almost completely packed with Norwegians, went completely silent in stunned
shock for a minute after the race ended, and then erupted into an accolade
for the courage of the Italians!!!!!!
In 1998 in
On Sunday CNBC , ran an hour long Special on "The Race".
And that
same day in Torino Italy ( actually
Pragelato) , but this time in front of a Roaring
Italian crowd, the Italians again shocked the world and captured the most
coveted Gold Medal of the Winter Olympics, but this time, winning with a
comfortable 15 second margin with a magnificent "breakout" 300 meters
from the finish, leaving the competitors in the "dust".
But, Nothing
can match "The Race" and "The Sequel"
!!!!!!!!
In !994:
The
Lifetime Perfect Race
The Italian " Dream" team "
at the
22 Febuary1994
(In order of skiing relay positions)
"Grandpa" Maurillio De Zolt
(42 years !) = Ist session, classic
Marco Albarello
= IInd session, classic
Giorgio Vanzetta =
III rd session, skating
Silvio Fauner !
=
IVth session, skating
This cross country ski
race represents for Italy one of the most important sport victories of all
times, as those 4 men were capable to defeat the unbeatable Norwegian team in
the Norwegian Olympics: for Norway, X-country skiing is as baseball for U.S.A.
or soccer for Italy, all it's team members were sport national heroes ( as Bjorn Daehlie and Vegard Ulvang ) in extraordinary
fit conditions, but ... for 10 years, the Italian team had been getting slowly
better.
This has been possible
with the help of a great coach, an real "man motivator" Sandro Vanoi (and Sandro D'Incal), studying the
body machine, the technical equipment, biomechanics, and all the ways to get
slightly closer to nations like Sweden, Finland and Norway, where you can train
on ski 9 months a year and thousands of people practice the sport.
"Old" and experienced men like Maurillio de
Zolt and Marco Albarello,
several times on the first positions in the past years competitions, were proud
of suggestions to less experienced teammates.
In the World Champs in 1993
All the next year was spent preparing the Olympic relay race, The Race, a race
that can prove the world the power in x-country skiing of a nation. They forgot
minor races, or the World Cup or individual Olympic races, the relay was
"our" race, an obsession !
Sandro Vanoi studied other
teams and decided that silver wasn't sufficient, as Italian team with a 101%
effort, with a bit of luck and craziness could get that "f**ked"
medal.
And he risked, putting the older man, "grandpa" Maurillio
De Zolt (42 years old) on the first session, even not
his strongest style, knowing and hoping that his huge fighting character and experience
would make him choose death rather than giving precious seconds to opponents.
Maurillio ended the first session 7th, with only 17
seconds delay, launching Marco Albarello to an
impossible catch.
But Marco did the miracle, catching the head with 1km to the end, passing
Giorgio did his lifetime race performing this impossible mission, as he
launched Silvio Fauner in
the last session still close to the opponents.
Over 100.000 spectators were cheering now Dahelie,
who in this Olympics had already won 2 golds, but
probably in his head he started to feel something wrong, as Fauner
was still the youngest and less experienced Italian man, but he had an
unbeatable final kick; he had already beaten him twice that season
! The Finnish athlete was the weakest of the team, so the games were not
yet closed.
At 2 km from finish
Daehlie with 300m to go passed to lead making a long
sprint in order to defeat Fauner's last 50m ......
.... but Fauner didn't lose a centimeter and burnt
all the last energies of his body in the last meters making his dream ( and ours ) come true!
I will always remember the sportsmanship of the Norwegian team and their
spectators: they started to cheer the Italian team for the marvellous
race they had performed only after few seconds of disappointment!
The unbeatable last 50m kick of Silvio
Fauner
Four years later, in 1998
Nagano Olympics, the Italian team still manage the
miracle to produce again four athletes capable to challenge till the last
meters with the monster Norwegian team. Fauner and Albarello again, with Furio Falbusa e
In this case, glory for winner but honor for the losers !
The
" Sport web ", by Francesco Stefanon