“The tickets to Ushuaia were booked, but Fede felt certain pains and we changed everything”: Davide Brignone speaks

No one knows her better than he does: her lifelong brother and companion on the slopes and in the thousand activities they do together in a wonderful relationship, and for the past few years, her personal coach.

Davide Brignone spoke about Federica a few hours after the two-time Olympic champion once again found herself undergoing surgery, on Tuesday afternoon at La Madonnina clinic in Milan, to remove the plate and screws from her left knee, just under 17 months after the accident in the Italian giant slalom on April 3, 2025.

Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the coach of the most successful woman in the history of Italian skiing discussed the events of recent months in detail, revealing first of all that the departure for Ushuaia, one week after her elite-team teammates, had already been arranged. “We had tickets for August 30, but when we put our skis back on in Cervinia (during the July 30 test, ed.) we found conditions that were not particularly good, although they did not have much of an impact, and Federica only had to ‘test’ her leg with touring skis and giant slalom skis.

Although the overall picture is fairly good, she felt certain pains again, so we went back to the doctors, who, after some in-depth examinations, raised the possibility of surgery to remove the plate and screws.

As we have always repeated, Fede wants to feel well in everyday life, even before she does on skis, and to return to doing all the things she enjoys, not just some of them. She is an all-round athlete who at the moment cannot run or play tennis, two activities that involve too much stress and too many changes of direction. The doubt concerning the meniscus? Few people know that during the downhill training run at the Games she felt very severe pain in her knee when landing from a jump, a problem that has never left her since.

If Dr. Panzeri decided that no intervention was necessary, I want to think that there has been no deterioration”.

Davide once again explains that double title in Cortina, after she had risked giving up the super-G precisely because of the pain she felt after the downhill days, as follows. “It was more of a miracle than something sensible; months later, I am increasingly convinced of that. Two days before the super-G she was not even able to do course inspection, and then the victory came. No one knows exactly how she managed it, but sometimes the mind allows us to do things that seem almost supernatural”.

Soelden is ruled out, with a likely return in December? Federica’s brother and coach leaves every possibility open; there is no certainty that the two-time overall World Cup winner will line up at the start again: “We are ready for anything; it depends solely on her. As far as I am concerned, I can only wait and perhaps help her in other areas, such as the mental side.

We will have to understand how she is on skis, whether she can stand on them and ski, whether she can push and whether she can do so in one discipline, two or three. And also whether it hurts her more in downhill, super-G or giant slalom, doing jumps and fast turns.

Her muscle tone and tissues have improved, and I truly hope she can resume training in a few weeks. Last year she was determined to go to the Olympics at any cost, and in the end she paid the price, but I do not think she would be willing to endure that pain again”.