These are some of the figures who will compete in the XXV edition of the Winter Olympic Games, those of Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy), the fourth Olympic event on Italian territory – the third non-summer one -, which will open this Friday and will be held in the largest territory in history (22,000 square kilometers):
MIKAELA SHIFFRIN (USA): THE SNOW QUEEN WHO DEVOURERS RECORDS
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Saying that four years ago, at the Beijing Games, she made the news because she did not capture any medals in the six events she competed in, practically everything is said, because the headlines that Shiffrin gives are usually linked to success.
Possibly the greatest of all time in alpine skiing – the king of winter sport – ‘Mika’, 30 years old, improved in March 2023 the once classified as stratospheric record of World Cup victories (86) of the Swede Ingemar Stenmark; and two years later he achieved, in the slalom of Sestriere (Italy), his 100th victory in the regularity competition.
On January 27, by raising his own absolute historical record of victories to 108 in Spindleruv Mlyn (Czech Republic) – with the seventh of the season, all in that discipline – he secured his ninth Crystal Globe in slalom. That, on her way to a sixth final victory in the World Cup, with which she would equal the record of the Austrian Annemarie Moser-Pröll, the great champion of allas in major events, she became, at the age of 18 and at the Sochi’14 Games (Russia) the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history.
Twelve years later, in the trials that will take place in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Vail’s super-predator – with two Olympic titles, eight world titles and 18 medals in major events. She will once again be a favorite in a discipline in which she has 71 victories – another absolute historical record -; without disgusting the giant and the combine
DOMEN PREVC (SLO): THE PERFECT SEASON OF THE SLOVENIAN EAGLE?
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Winner, at the beginning of January, of the Cuatro Trampolines – in which he emulated, ten years later, his brother Peter, becoming the first pair of brothers to win the prestigious Christmas tournament throughout its 74 editions – and outstanding leader of the World Cup, in which he has, after his two victories in Willingen (Germany), eleven triumphs this year, Domen Prevc may be facing the perfect season.
Born 26 years ago in Kranj, last season he broke the world record by jumping 254.5 meters on the giant springboard in Planica (Slovenia), shortly after winning two golds at the World Championships in Trondheim (Norway). Two weekends ago he was proclaimed world champion in flying, in Oberstdorf (Germany) and leads the overall standings of the World Cup with no less than 625 points ahead of another star, the Japanese Ryoyu Kobayashi.
At the Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Games he could end up completing a perfect campaign if he also becomes Olympic champion. In Predazzo, where she could win up to four medals and where the big favorite in the women’s events is her sister Nika.
JOHANNES HOSFLOT KLAEBO (NOR), THE INTIMIDATING FONDIST
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With five Olympic titles, fifteen world golds and 107 victories in the World Cup, a competition whose overall victory he has won five times, Klaebo is the most successful active cross-country skier on the international stage. “The best in history and will probably be the best of all time,” according to his Spanish colleague Jaume Pueyo, who will be an Olympian for the second time in these Games, told Efe.
Klaebo, born 29 years ago in Oslo, who has a total of 25 medals in major events, is moving firmly towards a sixth Crystal Globe, leading the overall World Cup with 1,539 points, 381 more than his compatriot Harald Östberg Amundsen.
He came out of the PyeongChang Games with three golds and in the Beijing Games, four years ago, he ‘only’ captured two, to which, however, he added, a silver and a bronze. In the tests of this Olympic event, in Tesero, he will be able to continue expanding his already outstanding record of achievements.
ESTER LEDECKA (RCH): ‘DOUBLE AGENT’, SOLE CHAMPION
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Born 30 years ago in Prague, Ledecka is not only the most important athlete in the entire winter history of the Czech Republic, but she is a unique figure: at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Games in South Korea, she became the first in history to win two golds in two different sports.
Ledecka first won the super-G alpine skiing event and then became Olympic champion in parallel giant snowboarding, a discipline in which she revalidated the title four years later at the 2022 Beijing Games, capturing a third Olympic gold.
Last year, Ledecka repeated, in the World Championships in Engadin (Switzerland), the same result that he had achieved eight years earlier in the Sierra Nevada (Granada), in Spain: gold in the parallel giant and silver in the slalom.
This, a month after winning bronze in the super at the Alpine World Championships in Saalbach (Austria), marking another milestone, becoming the first to win medals in two intercontinental championships in the same year in two different sports. In Italy, the Czech star will shine again.
ILIA MALININ (USA): THE ‘QUADRUPLE GOD’, GOING FOR THE OLYMPIC CROWN
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Son of the Russian-Uzbek Tatiana Malinina – winner of the 1999 Grand Prix Final and gold at the Asian Games in Gangwon (South Korea) that year – and the naturalized Russian Uzbek Roman Skorniakov – silver at the 1999 Asian Games -, Ilia Malinin has figure skating in his veins.
Born in Fairfax (Virginia) 21 years ago, Malinin is a double world champion (2024 and 2025) and triple winner of the Grand Prix Final (2023-24-25), and, at the beginning of January, he was proclaimed United States champion in St. Louis (Missouri) for the fourth year in a row.
In September 2022 he became the first to nail a ‘quadruple Axel’ in an international competition, something he has repeated on numerous occasions, which has earned him the nickname ‘The Quad God’.
There are those who think that it is almost impossible for him to lose at the Milan Olympic skating rink, where he would succeed his compatriot Nathan Chen, gold four years ago in Beijing; after the Japanese Yuzuru Hanyu – training partner of the Spanish Javier Fernández, bronze in PyeongChang – revalidated the Sochi’14 (Russia) title in South Korea.
ORIOL CARDONA (ESP), TO EMULATE THE UNFORGETTABLE ‘PAQUITO’
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Double world and European sprint champion, Cardona, born 31 years ago in Banyoles (Gerona), has become – almost suddenly, for the general public – the main Spanish asset in these Games, in which mountain skiing, the sport it dominates, debuts on the Olympic calendar.
The Catalan star, favorite in the sprint on February 19 and who can also win, on the 21st, in the relay, in which he will partner with Ana Alonso from Granada, could become the first Spanish Olympic champion 54 years after Francisco Fernández Ochoa, the unforgettable ‘Paquito’, scored in the alpine ski slalom at the ’72 Sapporo Games (Japan).
In an interview with Efe shortly before the Games, without wanting to admit his status as a favorite, Cardona explained that ‘Paquito’ “was a pioneer and is pure history of Spanish sport.”
MARCO ODERMATT (SUI), TO REPEAT THE ‘TRIPLET’ OF SAILER AND KILLY
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Winner of the last four editions of the Alpine Skiing World Cup, Marco Odermatt, born 28 years ago in Niedwalden, has become, since the retirement of tennis player Roger Federer, the great sporting idol of Switzerland.
At the 2022 Beijing Games he became Olympic champion of his great specialty, the giant (in which he has 29 of his 53 victories in the World Cup and in which he has captured the Crystal Globe four times); and he is world champion of the three disciplines he competes in: three years ago he won intercontinental gold in downhill and giant, in Courchevel (France); and last year he captured the title in the super-G.
‘SuperMarco’ has won everything in the winter sport, except the Kitzbühel descent (Austria): the most prestigious and dangerous on the circuit. On the monstrous ‘Streif’ slope, two Saturdays ago, he could not hold back his tears when, by just seven hundredths, Giovanni Franzoni, the new emerging star of Italian skiing, stole the victory from him.
In the Bormio events – which start on Saturday with the relegation – he can win three golds, which would equal the only two in history who have achieved it, in the same Games, to date: the Austrian Toni Sailer, in the Cortina d’Ampezzo Games in 1956, and the Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy, in the Grenoble ’68 Games, in front of their fans.
