“Fire” and “Sun”: Italy’s Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii set ice ablaze as they turn their souls inside out
Grand Prix event winners Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii have gone through multiple evolutions in their partnership, but their ability to make each other laugh and support each other in the darkest of times has not changed.
Figure Skating
“Assieme.”
This is the word, meaning “together” in Italian, that pairs partners Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii say to each other ahead of every figure skating competition they take part in.
A lot has changed in the five years since the skaters teamed up. Conti and Macii won their first world and European championship medals, came together and broke apart as a couple off the ice, lost loved ones, and paid tribute to them in their programs, but their tradition of saying that word has never wavered.
"Together. Do it together. Feel together," Macii says as Conti holds his hands and nods.
Saying “together” is more than a habit for the Italian pair. Conti and Macii complement each other perfectly not only in terms of executing technical elements in sync but also when it comes to their equally fiery personalities.
"Nic is fire. My definition, it's fire," Conti said, before addressing the next words directly to her career's only skating partner. "You help me to go further to do our best."
Macii had a similar description for the fellow Lombardy-born skater: "She's really sunny. She's very spontaneous and all the time she has a smile. So every time she comes to the ice rink and she's not smiling, I'm like, 'What happened?' I can see that she's not happy. But when we skate, all the time – if we skate good, of course, if we have a good practice – then she's super happy all the time."
Conti and Macii's well-matched personalities have proven a lifeline in recent seasons when, just as their personal relationship amicably fell apart, they became even closer as friends. They each had to face the loss of close family members and have mourned these losses together through their programs, forging a deeper bond, which they now channel into their shared dream of making an Olympic debut at home in just over a year’s time.
Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii's unlikely first steps into figure skating
Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii were born five years and 60 kilometres apart. While both are from the Lombardy region, they grew up in strikingly different settings – she in a small village with a population of 13,000 people, and he in Milan, Italy’s second most populous city.
Despite these different circumstances, neither avoided obstacles on their path into figure skating.
The senior of the two, Macii was dabbling in different sports when he saw the skating competition at the Olympic Games Torino 2006 in his native Italy, and became eager to try it.
His mother was not thrilled with the idea. The ice rink was too far away and the prospect of her then 11-year-old son trudging back home at late hours of the night was not an enticing one. Macii ultimately managed to convince her, however, as his schoolmate was also going to the rink and he was able to pair up with her.
Other classmates also joined them, but while they later dropped out of the sport, Macii continued and skated every day, including on weekends and holidays.
"It was not that I was better than them, but I was addicted to it," he explained. "I always wanted to make it and to improve. That's the thing that made me get to where I am now because I was not that talented, so my key was the hard work. I worked so much and I keep working very hard."
Although the commute to the ice rink was a long one for Macii, at least there were several options in Milan – unlike for Conti, who grew up in Alzano Lombardo, a small town near the city of Bergamo. She first skated while on holiday in France with her mother and some friends.
After returning to Italy, the mother and daughter found a rink in the nearby area of Zanica, and since then Conti has skated almost every day.
"I was so young and I really didn't know there was an ice rink in my small city," Conti said. "I don't remember when I fell really in love with this sport, but I remember that I started at five years old and I never stopped skating.”
Conti was originally a singles skater, but she struggled to translate her solid training into podium finishes. She did not manage to crack into the top 10 at the ISU Challenger Series level and had a best placement of fifth at the Italian championships during the 2017-18 season, dropping to 10th the following year.
Shortly after, in 2019, she announced her partnership with Macii.
“I started to skate together with Nic five years ago because I'm really not happy to do singles. I'm super strong in the practice, but when I go into competition, I completely forget everything that I have to do," Conti said. "I'm super happy to be here with Nic, my only partner, and I want to see my future there, our future."
Conti and Macii made their debut as a pair at the 2019 Icelab International Cup and finished fifth in the event. They could not gain more competition experience during their second year together due to the Covid pandemic and were still getting mixed results once competitions resumed, until breaking through in the 2022-23 season.
That season saw them get medals in both of their Grand Prix assignments and a bronze at the Grand Prix Final. They also won the 2023 European Figure Skating Championships, becoming the first Italian pair to win a European title, and two months later picked up a bronze at the world championships in Japan.
In good times and in bad: A bond based on respect and compassion
The relationship between Conti and Macii has evolved over the years.
The duo dated from 2018 to March 2023 and continued to skate together after their split. While they now mostly see each other on the ice, their training sessions are filled with just as many laughs and smiles as before.
"Our relationship, it's different now, but I'm super happy because now we are in the best mood that we can have," Conti said. "If I'm sad or I have a problem, I'm not happy, he does everything that he can do to put a smile on my face."
It goes both ways. While Conti looks to Macii to get her out of a bad mood, Macii relies on Conti’s good humour for a boost when training gets repetitive.
"We don't like to skate together when someone is upset. We like to leave our problems out of work," Macii said. "We have to enjoy what we have to do because – just saying between us – sometimes it's boring to skate and to do exactly the same thing every day, a thousand times. So at least you have to enjoy what you're doing and enjoy people you have around."
"We have the same superpower and, on the ice, it's the feeling that we create, the feeling that we have. We really feel each other. We really start now to feel the rhythm together," - Niccolo Macii to Olympics.com
Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii's free skate during the 2024-25 season is set to Barbra Streisand's "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and is a tribute to Conti's late father.
Their training sessions are not all laughs and smiles, however. Both skaters faced personal loss in recent seasons that weighed heavily on them when they came to the ice.
Conti's father passed away from Covid during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, less than a week after being admitted to hospital. Not long after, Macii lost his grandfather with whom he was extremely close.
While Macii struggled to find the motivation to get back on the ice following the loss, it was the opposite for Conti who tends to use skating as an escape from painful reality. In that sense, the Covid pandemic was an especially testing time for her. Not only did Conti lose her father, but the closure of ice rinks meant she had nowhere to go to release her pain.
"In the Covid moment, we couldn't skate. We were closed in the house, and I just wanted to skate," Conti said. "When there is a bad moment or a completely destroyed moment, I really just want to skate because I feel free on the ice. The ice under my body, it's a safe place for me."
Conti was especially heartbroken over her father's passing because she was not able to say goodbye to him. She did so through her figure skating program instead.
The Italian pair set their 2024-25 season free skate to “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” in which Barbara Streisand’s character from the movie Yentl makes a moving plea to a late father.
Conti and Macii performed a similarly personal short program during the previous season, set to "Intermezzo Sinfonico" from Pietro Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria Rusticana. This music played at the wedding of Macii’s grandfather and served as a tribute to the man who passed away three years ago.
Conti, who knew Macii’s grandfather well, readily agreed to the music choice, just as he later helped her to bring "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" to the ice. It was yet more proof of the compassion and mutual respect the two have for each other.
"Every time we think about the music, even if I think about the music, I always start to think how Sara will think about it, that she feels good in that," Macii said. "And she does the same for me.
"She knows that we are one thing on the ice, so we need to have the same thoughts."
The Five Rings Project: Home Olympics at Milano Cortina 2026
In addition to personal tragedies, Conti and Macii have faced setbacks in their competitive careers. After a dazzling 2022-23, the following season became a disappointment as the pair were unable to return to the podium at either the world or European championships.
They were also forced to withdraw from the national championships when Conti caught a bad flu.
The skaters turned to a mental coach during the off-season to untangle their subsequent doubts and returned with new confidence in the fall of 2024. This new energy has already translated onto the ice. Conti and Macii started the season by winning the Lombardia Trophy for the third time in a row and followed that up with back-to-back medals in the Grand Prix series, gold for winning the Cup of China and silver at the Grand Prix de France.
Conti and Macii are hoping to iron out the remaining kinks in the pre-Olympic year as they gear up for Milano Cortina 2026. It would be an Olympic debut for both, as well as a very personal milestone – Macii was born in the city and Conti trains at the rink that will host the Olympic competition.
"We have a group on WhatsApp. We are me, Nic and our team, Barbara (Luoni) and Raffaella (Cazzaniga), and the name, it's 'Five Rings Project' because Milano Cortina, it's our project," Conti said. "I'm super excited. I just want to watch the arena."
Macii, on the other hand, not only wants to watch the arena. He wants to see everyone in that arena on their feet.
"I don't care about any medal," Macii said. "The only thing that I want is the crowd standing for the short and for the free. I want the arena that comes down. That's the only thing that I want. With the five rings, I want that everyone is clapping for us and cheering for us, and it's going to be my dream. I will be satisfied. And then if there comes the medal, then top, champagne. But that's the main dream."
A standing ovation, a possible pop of a cork backstage, and the absolutely perfect moment to clasp hands again and say: “Assieme”.
Niccolo Macii and Sara Conti, pictured here during an exhibition skate at the Grand Prix de France, won their career's first Grand Prix in November 2024.