article by Nicola Pucci
The year is 1966/1967and the brilliant intuition of Serge Lang, a transalpine journalist with a passion for winter sports, gives birth to the first edition of the World Cupstarting that event in stages which since those historic days has rewarded every year whoever was the best of all.
Women’s Italy first experienced the golden era of Celina Seghifrom Abetone like Zeno Colo, the first dazzling star of blue skiing, and then applauded the exploits of Giuliana Minuzzothe first Italian woman to get on the podium at the Olympics, third in the downhill at the 1952 Oslo Games. And if today, passing through Claudia Giordani, Deborah Compagnoni, Isolde Kostner and all the others who have brought prestige to alpine skiing in skirt, collecting a reasonable number of successes, we feast our eyes on the exploits of Federica Brignone, Sofia Goggia and Marta BassinoHowever, it is good to remember that in the World Cup Giustina Demetz was the first girl to climb to the top step of the podium, curiously anticipating what the male colleagues were able to do, in the specific case Gustav Thoeni who won the first Italian victory in giant slalom in Val d’Isere on 11 December 1969, it is worth saying this in the fourth year of the main ski event.
Giustina, therefore, from Val Gardena of Santa Cristina, born in 1941, multi-purpose skier who is well suited to all three specialtiesand who was present at the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics when she was 11th in downhill, her favorite event, and 14th in giant slalom, repeating with good placings two years later at the World Championships in Portillo, Chile, when she was even sixth in both downhill and giant slalom, not too far from the podium, and fifth in combined.
1966, in fact, and it’s time for the wonderful chapter of the World Cup to open. AND Demetz, which competes in every specialty of alpine skiing, is immediately competitive, achieving a series of excellent placings at the beginning of 1967, when she was sixth in the giant slalom in Grindelwald, fourth and tenth in the downhill, again in Grindelwald (just one hundredth behind the French Florence Steurer who stole the podium from her) and in Schruns, and ninth and tenth between the narrow posts, in Schruns and Monte Bondone. A consistency of performance that at the end of the season it will allow them to finish ninth in the overall Cup standings.
On March 3, 1967, Demetz experienced her very personal moment of glory. After five years, the classic appointment of Kandahar back to Italy, to be precise on the snows of Sestriereand on the runway 9 of the Banchetta the not yet 26 year old from Gardena is engaged in downhill racingthe third of the season after those of Grindelwald and Schruns which celebrated the victories of the Canadian Nancy Greene and the French Marielle Goitschel, the two main contenders for the crystal ball.
Own Demetz finds herself battling for victory with the younger of the Goitschel sistersand finally, after having risked falling in the initial stretch in the woods, managing somehow to stay balanced thanks to an acrobatics, and at the culmination of 2450 meters of effort, with his impeccable style, the time the two downhill skiers have in common, 2’01″75, giving Italy’s women’s first overall victory in the World Cup, albeit together. As, curiously, was Giustina’s other success in 1964, still downhill, in Voss, Norway, when the race was not yet considered for the World Cup, setting the same time as the Austrian. Christl Haas.
Demetz wins exactly where Carla Marchelli won in 1956, and at the end of the race, happy for the success that projects her into the history of Italian skiing, she is already looking to the future. “Withdrawal? In a year, after the 1968 Olympics on the Chamorousse track“. In Grenoble, however, the Italian will not get what she dreamed of and the end of her competitive adventurewhich began with the breaking of the tibia in 1958 in Crans Montana, then continued the following year with the fracture of an elbow in Garmisch, and also ended, in 1960, with a serious ankle sprain, she who had competed despite the contrary opinion of the parents, traumatized by the accident of their older brother Ernesto, who was left paralyzed in the legs, will arrive some time later, in 1970, on January 15th in Bad Gastein, Austria, when she will be ninth in the World Cup downhill.
Already, downhill and World Cup, when Italy’s roll of honor in skirts opens with the name of Giustina Demetza trailblazer for the champions who will come after her.
I like:
“Like” Loading…
2023-12-07 18:47:44
#GIUSTINA #DEMETZ #ITALIAN #WIN #WORLD #CUP #SportHistoria
