Short Trackthe interview
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In an interview granted to "Corriere della Sera", the Olympic champion thunders again on her teammates, coaches and federation. "If I didn't care about the team as someone says, today I would be silent, but the environment is terrible, the young people want to stop and I won't do it for another four years".
Tuesday 1 March 2022 11 minutes reading time
It is a situation that has been dragging on for years, as she herself confirms, and we are talking about the greatest champion in the history of Italian short track and one of the blue legends in the entire panorama of winter disciplines, so much so that she has beaten in Beijing ( with a gold and two silvers around her neck) Stefania Belmondo's record at the Olympic Games in terms of medals, climbing to 11 in her fifth adventure in five circles.
She dreams of Milan-Cortina 2026, but Arianna Fontana was expecting a signal from the FISG that has not arrived, indeed the president Andrea Gios (who is heading for re-election, next March 19) spoke very clearly at the end of the Olympics, defining the champion Valtellinese an athlete who has ruined the environment of the national team and who will not have, at the helm of the blue team, her personal coach Anthony Lobello, who is also Arianna's husband.
Today, the "Corriere della Sera" published an interview with ... fire and ice, which Fontana granted to the journalist Gaia Piccardi. Also mentioning the names and surnames of those male colleagues who he had already accused in Beijing of having tried to make her fall in training, years earlier: they are Tommaso Dotti and Andrea Cassinelli, both on the Olympic podium (in the case of the second, twice since was in the team with Fontana in the mixed silver) with the bronze relay. “They said that I am not a leader, that I have split the national team - begins the blue star - I have never been one of great speeches: I let the results speak for themselves. Being on the ice for 16 years is a way of being a leader and, if I didn't care about the team, I'd be silent today.
I have been living badly in certain situations with the coaches since 2010. They were turning me into a cross-country skier: I had almost lost my skills as a sprinter. As I approached Vancouver, I learned to manage myself. After the Olympics in Canada, the coaches are Eric Bedard and Kenan Gouadec, a formidable couple that does not last long. From Sochi 2014 onwards, only Gouadec remains. He has to manage 15-20 athletes, too many: Anthony Lobello, a former skater who has become my husband in the meantime, offers to help him. I'll make you ice and blades, he suggests. Practical, not training. “You'll never have anything to do with the team,” he hears a reply.
We feel terrible, so much so that Kenan was at our wedding. From then on, things get worse and he himself is often late, sometimes not very lucid: he is no longer him. The trust of the whole team diminishes and Sanfratello (today general secretary of the FISG) knows everything. I realize that I have to find a solution and at the end of a very long reflection, I choose Anthony as the coach ”.
Fontana continues in the story of troubled years: “In May 2017, Anthony officially becomes my technician. On the ice I work with Gouadec, out with my husband. Kenan does not take it well, he begins to make a foolish filibuster. I put on the blinders and shoot straight towards PyeongChang 2018: there is the first individual gold to win and in Korea the work pays off (with the title in the 500 meters, as in Beijing). Back in Italy, Coni has an idea: Anthony c.t. girls. You are wasted working only with Arianna, Sanfratello tells him, but when he asks to set up the Olympic four-year period in his own way, he asks for autonomy, he exposes his vision made up of humanity and sensitivity, the agreement jumps and Federghiaccio withdraws the proposal .
Yet we are athletes, not machines. Gouadec becomes d.t. but manages the team from Australia; an American arrives for one season, then a Frenchman, Ludovic Mathieu. We are in Baselga di Pinè, the president Gios proposes that I join the group. Anthony is clear: Mathieu has not understood anything about Arianna, the paths remain separate. What happens shortly after in Courmayeur proves him right - and here Fontana definitively reveals when it happened 3 years ago - Mathieu asks me to skate with the boys: Tommaso Dotti and Andrea Cassinelli start making dangerous tracks in front of me, changes of direction, accelerate and decelerate. Dangerous stuff. They talk, it's clear to everyone: they want to make me fall. They become more and more aggressive, I keep my distance, I finish the training, I leave.
At the technical meeting the next day, they admit: we don't like you training with us. I expect consequences, but the Federation throws the problem on my husband: it annoys him to see him on the ice. Moral: Cassinelli stops, but Dotti continues with his games throughout the season. A terrible environment. Every day I wake up with anguish and stomach ache, wondering: what will happen today? What are Anthony and I gonna do wrong? And the day of contact between me and Dotti, of course, arrives: I go straight against the balustrades at 50 per hour, my ankle swells.
In Salt Lake City, in the World Cup, as a precaution I give up the relay. Gios sends me to say that either I take part or I pack my bags. Also he, in Beijing, said that boys are the ideal sparring partners to grow up, that I should thank them. So would contact at full speed with a man who weighs twenty kilos more than me would be helpful? But what are we talking about? In Japan Dotti tries again: he accelerates, I set the track to block it, at the end of training the other blue ones come to me to congratulate me. One year after Beijing, the FISG changes coach again.
Fred Blackburn arrives from Canada. I think: finally a good one to set up work with. We agree on the training according to the relay: two months before the Games Gouadec leaves and returns. All absurd. The real problem is that an athlete has the right to train in a peaceful environment, ours instead is toxic: in the language, in the thoughts, in the bullying attitudes of certain colleagues. Everyone is afraid to express themselves, there are young people who have just joined the team who already want to quit.
It is important that the athlete is listened to, not used as a means of getting to the medals. There is a theme of sporting culture to change: in Italy it is a kindergarten, there is a lack of professionalism. I would like to get there in Milan-Cortina 2026, closing the Italian Games as I started would be a fairy tale, but I won't do it for another four years ”.
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