Four-time Paralympic champion Giacomo Bertagnolli eager to soar on home Milano Cortina 2026 slopes: "I am never satisfied"
There are 500 days remaining until the Opening Ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games and Para alpine skier Giacomo Bertagnolli is determined to make them his most memorable yet.
Paralympic Games
Para alpine skier Giacomo Bertagnolli is no stranger to the taste of gold. He won four Paralympic gold medals, two at each of the Games he competed at. What he has yet to experience, however, is winning gold in front of family and friends.
After two Paralympic Games editions in Asia - PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 - the Italian ski star will begin a third quest for gold a mere hour and a half away from his doorstep.
“It will surely be completely new emotions,” Bertagnolli told Olympics.com. “To have everyone who knows you, friends, family, my girlfriend, all there to cheer you on is definitely something different than competing on the other side of the world with people having to get up at night to follow the races. It will be something different. There will probably be a lot more emotions to deal with, and it won't be easy at all."
With 500 days to go until the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Games, Bertagnolli is among the host country’s biggest medal hopes.
The 25-year-old has already shown that he can carry heavy expectations, at Beijing 2022, where he was selected to be Italy's flagbearer at the Opening Ceremony. He brought back four medals in the vision impaired class – the same tally he amassed on his Paralympic debut in 2018 – and has set an ambitious goal for the home Paralympics: to win medals in five out of five races.
Olympics.com spoke to the eight-time Paralympic medallist about competing on home slopes, swapping ice hockey for alpine skiing, and the unique astrological connection he has with his guide Andrea Ravelli.
From ice to snow: How Giacomo Bertagnolli found his perfect sport match on the slopes
While Giacomo Bertagnolli is now usually seen holding ski poles, there was a time when it was more common to find him with a hockey stick in hand. The champion skier played ice hockey for years, but ultimately had to give up the sport when his vision deteriorated.
“As the game got faster and we grew up, from children to teenagers, the team wanted to win and I started not seeing the passes well anymore, so I stayed on the bench," Bertagnolli said. "I didn't want to be on the bench, and I found an alternative when I discovered that Paralympic competitions existed. That's when it all started."
Growing up in Val di Fiemme, a world-renown ski area, Bertagnolli skied recreationally from an early age. The sport took on a different role in his life once he learned that he could be competitive in races for skiers with vision impairments.
“I realised that I had a chance to compete and put myself in fair competition against other people who had the same or similar difficulties as me," Bertagnolli said. "Until then, unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, the vision problem was there and it was clear to everyone, including me, and it made my desire to be competitive a bit unrealistic.”
Para alpine skiing turned out to be the perfect match. Bertagnolli won bronze in giant slalom at his first World Cup in February 2015 and finished third overall in the discipline for the season. Less than a year after his debut, he won his first World Cup, also in giant slalom, and topped that season's overall rankings. His second world championships, in 2017, yielded gold in super combined and silver in giant slalom. Another year later he brought home four medals from his first Paralympic Games.
Reflecting on this quick rise, Bertagnolli said he had not expected such stellar results. Once he achieved them, however, it made him even more eager to improve.
“I have always been a person who is never satisfied, so as soon as I reach a goal I set for myself, I immediately move on to the next one which is much more ambitious and I carry on like this day after day," he said.
"It's not always like this. Not everyone arrives and manages to win straight away like me, and it's precisely in those cases that you see which athlete puts their heart and soul into it and which will let it go over time precisely because it is in those difficult moments, in the most complicated moments, that one becomes 100 per cent an athlete.”
Bertagnolli has experienced a fair share of these complicated moments himself.
In 2019, the Italian skier was just one medal shy of a perfect golden sweep at the world championships – he collected gold in four races and silver in giant slalom. That elusive giant slalom gold came within reach again three years later at the next worlds edition, but shortly before his departure to Lillehammer, Bertagnolli tested positive for Covid-19.
He followed the skiing action from afar as his rivals seized his titles in the speed events and almost gave up hope of challenging them until his Covid test came back negative on 17 January, the day before his and guide Andrea Ravelli’s shared birthday.
The duo did not hesitate. They packed their bags and set off on a 12-hour journey to Norway.
With only a few hours between their arrival and the start of the next race, there was no time to check the course or try their skis. Undeterred, Bertagnolli and Ravelli launched off from the starting gates next morning and earned a late birthday present as they won the giant slalom event. They also picked up medals in the two other remaining races.
Giacomo Bertagnolli and Andrea Ravelli: Shared talent, shared ambition, shared birthdays
Bertagnolli and Ravelli continued their successful partnership at Beijing 2022, where they picked up gold in the slalom and super combined, and silver in the super-G and giant slalom.
Bertagnolli has worked with three other guides in his skiing career – schoolmate Fabrizio Casal, who competed with him at PyeongChang 2018, Marcellino Degiampietro, and Achille Crispino – but the connection he has with Ravelli is something even more special, and that is not only because they share a birthday date.
“I definitely get on super well with Andrea because he's someone older than me, more experienced than me, and much more technically advanced than me," Bertagnolli said of his guide, who was born exactly seven years earlier. "He was a very good skier when he was an athlete, then he became a teacher, coach, and ski instructor. He is a person with a great head and a great mentality, and it also helps me a lot to have this point of reference. I would like to ski like him. I certainly have a long way to go and I have someone who skis right in front of me who is an example of that.
"Then you have to consider your limits. That's the goal, but it will be difficult to reach because I have a rather serious vision problem. I can see less than half a tenth," Bertagnolli continued. “If I could get to his level despite seeing a lot less, that would be an even greater achievement for me.”
The duo uses bone conduction headsets, which are fully integrated into their helmets, to communicate during training and competitions “as if we were on the phone”. Ravelli shares information about the track, highlighting changes of pace and anything that went unnoticed during the course inspection. Bertagnolli, in turn, gives his guide indications about the distance between them.
“We don't have many keywords, but we have realised that the less we talk, the better because everyone stays focused on what needs to be done," Bertagnolli said. "Occasionally it happens that we spur each other on. When he is struggling in the slalom, for example. I can knock down the pole and cut the line while he has to go around the outside of all the poles. It's something you don't think about, but it becomes very complicated for a guide.”
One thing Bertagnolli and Ravelli can do completely in sync is celebrate their birthday together. Since 18 January falls in the middle of the winter season, the Italian ski pair usually delay the big party for April after the last medals are handed out. The actual birthday is reserved for racing – and the shiny gifts that come with it.
“We have given ourselves some nice presents over the years because it often happened that we have World Cup races on the 18 of January, where we have also brought home golds," Bertagnolli said. "It's certainly a nice way to celebrate."
A medal quest – and bigger mission – stretching from Asia to the backyard
After a big medal haul at Beijing 2022, Bertagnolli and Ravelli are hoping to win even more races at the home Games, which begin on 6 March 2026.
The Para alpine competition at Milano Cortina 2026 will take place on the slopes of Cortina d’Ampezzo. While the track is not far from his home, Bertagnolli only discovered it last year while racing on the World Cup circuit. He won gold in downhill and got silver in slalom and super-G on the Paralympic course and is eager to learn more about it.
“It's definitely a track that suits me. It's technical, but it's also fast," Bertagnolli said. "You have to have the courage to throw yourself down. It's a slope that suits me very well: technical, lots of bends. As for the slalom and the giant slalom, they are perhaps easier, but this is where I can express myself very well."
With Italian ski fans expected to be out in full force in 2026, and Bertagnolli's friends and family in attendance for the first time, he hopes the Games will get more people interested in Paralympic winter sports.
“In recent years the word 'Paralympic', the word 'Para-athlete', everything related to sport and disability, is becoming more prominent and more important. The results they achieved at the Summer Paralympics [Paris 2024] will certainly help to make us known as a general movement and we, as winter athletes, will have the exact same mission in Milano Cortina," Bertagnolli said.
"It is certainly a much more important echo that will help both new people to enter this world if they have disabilities, which is the most beautiful thing you can do, as well as sports enthusiasts who don't know us to become passionate about the Paralympic world."