Alpine Skiingthe memory
Forty-six years ago the "Blue Avalanche" was officially born with the five in the giant signed by Gros, Thoeni, Stricker, Schmalzl and Pietrogiovanna. With the legendary technical director at the helm.
Tuesday 7 January 2020 3 minutes reading time
A slightly sadder anniversary, as the first without the man who was the helmsman of that immense Italian team, from that day for everyone the "Blue Avalanche". Mario Cotelli, who passed away on 5 November, the technical director of an unrepeatable national team thanks also to his work, as well as to the talent of those champions who made skiing great in the 1970s.
Just 46 years have passed since that January 7, 1974 in which, on the snows of Berchtesgaden, the Italsci reached the peak of an extraordinary domination, with World Cups (they would become five absolute in series with Thoeni and Gros) and medals between the Olympics and the World Championships, and the five that entered the history of Italian sport.
Giant in Bavaria, the third of the World Cup season: Piero Gros dominates from the first heat (traced by that great technician who was Oreste Peccedi) and is confirmed in the second, triumphing in front of Gustavo Thoeni, who at the end of that season he had to relinquish the cup scepter to his Piedmont teammate, "crazy horse" Erwin Stricker, Helmuth Schmalzl and Tino Pietrogiovanna, capable of a sensational 2nd round to get back up to fifth place and go to compose a sequence that we will never see again and that has become a kind of nursery rhyme.
Gros, Thoeni, Stricker, Schmalzl, Pietrogiovanna. The five of Berchtesgaden.
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