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Stefano Longo
We interviewed the Paduan manager, number 1 of Fondazione Cortina 2026 and candidate for re-election in the federal council: "The budget of this Federation presents excellent numbers, but we can and must improve by working as a company and empowering people. skidome, I'll tell you how I think. We are late for the Games, now we have to run for different infrastructures ".
Thursday 22 September 2022 15 minutes reading time
Stefano Longo knows very well which FISI would like to see for the next four years that will lead to the great appointment of the Winter Olympic Games in Milan Cortina 2026, having worked on the federal council which will end its mandate in the next few days, towards the new elections scheduled in Milan on Saturday 15 October.
The Paduan executive, born in 1956, a high-level manager in the insurance branch and now in the world of snow for over a decade, if we think of his commitments as vice president of the Ski Club 18 in Cortina and then as a director in the last 4 years, is among the 23 candidates for a role also in the next CF.
We reached him by telephone, just a few hours after today's federal council, to analyze how much and what the new FISI can do, regardless of the president who will be chosen from among Roda, Dalpez, Falez, Maldifassi and Bisconti. Longo is the number 1, since last May, of the Cortina 2026 Foundation: so we took the opportunity to talk about the Olympic Games and what the body itself will do next season in the Ampezzo area, since it will deal directly with the World Cup competitions, from the trio of women's alpine skiing (20-22 January with two super-gs and a descent on the Olympia delle Tofane) to the confirmation of parallel snowboarding and SBX, up to the great news of the Paralympic trials. "The Foundation has been autonomous since the end of June and we already work with a couple of permanent employees, a general and commercial manager - explains Longo - From an operational point of view, we are pursuing a first track that sees the Cortina 2026 Foundation active in organizing events of CdM, which we “receive” from the FISI and, from 2023, also from FISIP (the Italian Paralympic Winter Sports Federation).
From the three women's speed races, to snowboarding between December and January (with a double appointment at night, a classic for the parallel giant on Faloria and an encore of 2021 for Moioli, who won right at the start, and companions a month later ), up to the World Cup finals for Paralympic skiing, with giant and slalom in March for the first time in Cortina.
I would like to underline this latest event, given that most of the 2026 Paralympics will be held in Cortina and that of next spring will be a very important test, from various points of view thinking for example of logistics, so much so that thanks to the help from the hoteliers association we have been working for some time to welcome disabled athletes according to their needs. We could also have a third race, with the Paralympic snowboard cross: it would be the eighth overall in Cortina in the 2022/23 World Cup season ”.
The second track? It concerns precisely the 2026 Games: “The collaboration with Milan Cortina 2026 is followed in particular by our general manager Michele Di Gallo, as well as consulting with an international company that supports us and is in fact the only“ external ”support. I would like to underline the support of the municipalities and of a territory that had already equipped itself for the 2021 Alpine Skiing World Championships (Longo was a director of the Cortina 2021 Foundation, with the position of head of the financial control committee, ed).
The 4-5 years of work preceding the world championship event were a very good university towards the biggest appointment, that is the Olympics, also for plant engineers, hoteliers, sports associations and all the realities of the social fabric ".
In his program as federal councilor, he talks about the 2022-2026 business plan and a new management style to have an evolved and renewed FISI at the end of the next four years. What do you expect specifically, in addition to a greater ability to delegate compared to the last management?
The strategy of centralization, carried out in this decade of Roda presidency, I believe was however correct because it was necessary to put a Federation back in order that in 2012 was in very difficult financial and capital conditions. We leave a very good closing balance, with a net worth of over 2 million. After 4 years as a councilor, I feel I can say that the FISI is so complex, with its 15 disciplines and impressive numbers even at the provincial and regional level, that it needs to make a cultural leap.
Let me explain: a Federation with a strong managerial matrix, delegating more to make people grow who will feel so empowered. I'm talking about executives at all levels, using techniques that make the company culture homogeneous. We already have an exceptional tool at home, such as the Federal Technical School, which can also be used for the training of managers, not just coaches. To sum up, I would like a positively different FISI ”.
What is your idea of the programs proposed by the various candidates?
We are talking about people with a level and specific curriculum for our field, but it is not so much the idea that you can make of the single person that makes the difference. For the new FISI, what will be most important will be the ability to put together a team, the 10 directors at central level, who know how to integrate well with each other and with their respective experiences and skills. The great ability of a president is to make these resources work together ”.
In recent days, on the occasion of his official presentation in Rome, Alessandro Falez pressed on the need to have systems such as skidomes. Do you consider it one of the many infrastructural deficiencies in our country and an urgent necessity?
Let's start from a concept, that is the strong critical issues related to the environmental situation, just look at the bad summer of the glaciers, and on the other hand a very difficult historical moment for energy costs, the ANEF reports in this sense are eloquent. In the belief that it is not easy to find a solution for a skidome in Italy, I must say that never like this year have I heard of minibuses from many ski clubs traveling to northern Europe, between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, or up to in Lithuania having the need to ski. Yes, it is an inescapable need to create the conditions, with the FISI leader of national or international companies specialized in the construction of a skidome, to achieve this goal with the collaboration of municipalities and regions, given that it will be necessary to find the right areas. to maintain a system of that type, as well as being able to access it in the best possible way.
How do you judge the state of the movement at the youth level in alpine skiing which, if among the boys already proposes some elements of the "Generation Z", from Vinatzer to Franzoni and Della Vite, at excellent levels, struggles more with the girls?
In the Federation there has been an evolution in recent years, I myself have always noticed a closure within the national youth teams, little attention was paid during the season to what was happening on the competition fields, but from 2019 something has changed and we begin to glimpse an opening also on the part of the technicians towards a whole world of athletes, it is no coincidence that the concept of the “Observed” was born from that federal council almost 4 years ago.
I believe that this approach will bear fruit in the short-medium term, it will take a little more time and a lot of ... curiosity. It is a word that I consider important: you have to go and see the athletes, understand what the best ski clubs offer us, and we have many of great value. Furthermore, in FISI, it is necessary to have the culture of backup: we do not have the concept of the latter, thus often remaining unmanned and it is a model that applies at all levels, from the political and managerial part to the issue of volunteering, up to the technical one.
The general state of health towards the Milan Cortina 2026 Games? And the "famous" track for the disciplines of gut in Cortina?
It would be a lie to say that everything is fine, you have to run fast on the infrastructure level. I am convinced that we will do everything, because there are places already substantially ready, such as Anterselva, Livigno, Val di Fiemme, Cortina for women's skiing, while remaining in the Ampezzo area, and here I connect to the question on the track for bobsleighs, skeleton and luge , we must begin to see the works for the Olympic ice stadium that will host curling.
The "Eugenio Monti": the IOC has expressed itself in a positive way, but I want to emphasize that this track must not only be a federal center, but work on an international level by hosting training and competitions beyond the Olympic event, of '' On the other hand, it is no coincidence that there are only 16 plants operating all over the world. The activities will start in October, then we will have to proceed quickly with the construction: could we go to Austria, as some say? Maybe yes, but I remember that we would have had to spend about twenty million to make it viable for an edition of the Games, doing it in someone else's house ”.
THE COMPLETE PROGRAM BY STEFANO LONGO AS CANDIDATE FOR THE FEDERAL COUNCIL
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