On the hunt for the Paralympic athletes of the future: more campuses and aids

Tobia, one month old and a few little wisps arriving by cable from Rallo (Trento), cheers for the Paralympics Azzurri like everyone else. He is the son of Melania Corradini, 38, silver medallist in the super-G at the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Games and now a popular RAI commentator. Born without an arm, the former athlete retraces her beginnings to explain how difficult it is to practise winter sports for people with disabilities: "My family took me and my brother to the ski school that made me grow up to reach competitive levels with able-bodied people. I had never posed the problem of my disability. It was only in 2003, thanks to the SportABILI association and one of their events, that I met the coach of the Paralympic national ski team by chance and my life changed. Then came theTurin 2006 Paralympics, in which Melania was the flag-bearer: 'Beyond personal satisfaction, that edition changed everything in the field of winter sports for people with disabilities. Finally the media exposure, the eight blue medals made many families understand that, yes, people with motor and visual disabilities could also ski. It was a revolution.

Today, twenty years later, the Atturrida team has about the same number of athletes (40 in Turin, 45 in Milan Cortina) and the same number of women (6 vs. 5 in 2026, i.e. 15% and 11%), while at a global level something has moved: in Turin 2006, women were 21% of the total, now they are 26%. In Italia, the perception of the possibility of practising snow sports has not been matched by an increase in the number of practitioners, also for economic reasons (a monoski costs about 8-10 thousand euro): "I believe that in order to attract more fans to winter sports and, among them, find the athletes of the future," explains Corradini, "it is necessary to assume the commitment of public institutions to support the initial phase: what family will ever be able to afford to spend thousands of euro just to start skiing?

The former Italian champion puts a huge issue on the table. Over the past 20 years, with vision and planning, the Italian Paralympic Committee has supported sports for people with disabilities on the ground and in Paris 2024 Paralympic Italia came sixth in the medals table, a success built up over the years and pursuing a project with clear lines. Something similar must be hypothesised for winter sports, a broad vision of sports policy,a ten-year strategic plan iin which to encourage contamination between Olympic and Paralympic federations and to count on the territory, as Marco Giunio De Sanctis, the president of the CIP, has promised to do. If each region - as planned by the CIP - will have its own Paralympic reference centre, it will be easierto practise sport, to follow athletes who aspire to wear the blue jersey, and to give them specific training. Melania Corradini also hypothesises ad hoc campuses for snow: 'In Colorado Springs,' Melania recalls, 'I visited one of the US Paralympic winter training centres. Of course, the USA can afford it because they have a population of 350 million, but also in Italia there are many realities in Sestriere, Albino (Bergamo), Roccaraso, Alleghe, and Predazzo that, in a small way, do meritorious work in initiating people into Paralympic skiing. It would be enough to systemise or clone them throughout the Alps.

One of these associations is the Enjoyski Sport of Albino, founded in 2016 by Mauro Bernardi. After an accident at work while driving his lorry, he became a paraplegic and, in 2006, after his journey to the rehabilitation centre, he took up sport in order to feel good, to regain some balance. He discovers skiing and is reborn: 'As an accident at work, I had the Inail cheque with which I was able to buy the monoski, but I immediately asked myself how any disabled person could access this expensive world of freedom. Thanks to Lara Magoni, a regional councillor at the time, Bernardi became Italy's first disabled ski instructor and the association was the consequence of the path taken. Enjoyski offers eight dual skis and 18 monoskis purchased thanks to sponsors to those who request them. This opportunity, made available from Aosta to Selva di Val Gardena (all you have to do is make a request), is a way of scounting athletes and also training family members and friends who accompany people with disabilities: 'About sixty youngsters and about thirty families revolve around Enjoyski. If realities like ours multiply, we will give everyone the chance to try and enjoy themselves'. Of course, it would be necessary to have more aids available: "The sponsors are there but, to feed the monoski equipment and the activity, we have started a kind of self-financing. I go to schools of all levels to talk about road safety and each participant pays three euros'.

Mauro travels around Lombardy to warn youngsters about the dangers of the road and those 3 euros multiplied by the thousands and thousands who listen to him become the future: 'The good sower,' he concludes, 'sows in abundance, some seeds will sprout and I am sure that, if we expand the number of practitioners, potential athletes will be found more easily than today. Giving them inclusion and even Paralympic horizons because, alongside his lectures on road safety, Mauro gives all the youngsters a carabiner-key ring engraved with a phrase that is sap for all: 'Hang on to life. And you will be free.