Dec. 9 – Thanks to the upcoming Sochi games, Italy “sharpens” its sportive weapons. Leaving the past behind (in Vancouver, the Italian team returned home with just five medals), the CONI president Giovanni Malagò wants to start off on the right foot his first experience at the summit. Malagò has spoken in recent days of ‘major premises’ for Sochi, but urged “not to judge the state of Italian sport only by the results.” Two months before the Games, which will start February 7 and will conclude in Russia on Feb. 23, the Italian flag-bearer, Armin Zöggeler, is looking to win his sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal. He is the most successful Italian winter sportsman (more than Pigneter or Tomba) and has been training long and hard for Sochi, so much so that he skipped the World Cup. Arianna Fontana, two Olympic bronze medals and a world cup in the short track racing, and Dominik Paris, silver-medal winner at the World Championships in Schladming, will also compete under the Italian flag. Christof Innerhofer, a ski veteran. and Omar Visintin, snowboarder who came in third at the World Cup, will accompany Michela Moioli and Raffaella Brutto in their quest for a medal in snowboard cross.
