Mario Cotelli and a life of number 1: the five cups with Thoeni-Gros and on 7 January 1974 in Berchtesgaden ...

It is difficult to sum up a career like that of the technical director who led the Valanga Azzurra to a series of inimitable triumphs.

Tuesday 5 November 2019 7 minutes reading time

Mario Cotelli was much more than a reference for Italian skiing, the first real manager capable of bringing the whole movement to a different level. His disappearance has shaken all the people of the snow, also because the ex-national team has always remained in the environment even in the last few years, living with a renal insufficiency that had forced him into dialysis. His condition, after a summer spent largely in Pantelleria continuing the course of treatment, unfortunately worsened in the last period, taking him away today at the age of 76 years. It is a wonderful life story, that of Cotelli, totally and visceral linked to skiing: just think that, only 26 years old, he was already at the helm of what later became the "Valanga Azzurra", the national team male in which he arrived first in team B, as vice of another myth like Jean Vuarnet, then from 1969 in team A to launch, in the season of the world championships in Val Gardena, a group of young people who will win everything, starting with Gustav Thoeni. Trafoi's ace, with Cotelli always at his side, won 4 absolute World Cups (1971, 1972, 1973, 1975), while that of the 1973/74 season was conquered by an enormous talent that responded to the name of Piero Gros , right in front of the teammate. Nine years, from '69 to '78, simply unbelievable if we think that, in the second part of this period, a certain Ingemar Stenmark showed up against the blue domination. Despite the immense talent of Tarnaby, the national team of the Valtellinese leader won, in addition to the five consecutive crystal balls, 12 medals between the World Cup and the Olympics, with the Olympic gold in giant conquered by Thoeni in Sapporo ''72 (and l '' the silver and the bronze of Trafoi's cousins, with Roland bronze, in the slalom behind 'Paco' Ochoa) and the legendary double win of the legendary Gustav in Sankt Moritz 1974 as the highest points in the big events, in addition to clearly the title to five circles that Piero Gros won at the 1976 Innsbruck Games. An authentic domain in the technical specialties, but woe to forget also what could be created in speed, with the tip Herbert Plank that, in the presence of the Austrian and Swiss battleships, carved out a very important space also going to win a bronze at the Olympic Games own of Innsbruck. In the heart of the period that will remain clearly the most successful in the history of the blue and world ski (no other nation has won more than 5 consecutive World Cups with two different athletes, ed), the most beautiful undertaking will come, the one that then brought the journalists of the time to coin the term â€œValanga Azzurraâ€: the five in the Berchtesgaden giant (in the photo), on 7 January 1974, when Piero Gros won with more than two seconds of margin over Gustav Thoeni, Erwin Stricker, Helmuth Schmalzl and Tino Pietrogiovanna. And how to forget so many other champions launched by Cotelli, from Franco Bieler to Paolo De Chiesa, from Fausto Radici up to that angel who answered to the name of Leonardo David, that the blue dt had already indicated as the ace of the future, before leaving the leadership of the national team in 1978 for the known contrasts with the federation and the tragic end of the phenomenal Aosta Valley talent. In the 40 years following the creation of the strongest team of all time, Cotelli has done a bit of everything, very active in the tourism field for his Valtellina, but also high quality television columnist, among the adventure in the new millennium with Sky Sport, to the appearances always appreciated at Rai and in general in the field of communication, where he had obtained great consensus also as a columnist of the "Corriere della Sera". Three years ago, he had published the book "The Epic of the National Ski Team 1969-1978", to tell in a volume that will remain in the annals an unforgettable story and of which he, the leader of the Valanga Azzurra who shook the world, it was the artificer.

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