It came out today Olympic slide (People editions), the book on the developments of the now “legendary” story of the Cortina bobsleigh track. The character of the book, edited by Pietro Lacasella and L’AltraMontagna, is that of an instant book: it is the photograph of an instant, even if to tell the truth there are ten photographs. Ten points of view, ten insights, to examine how a case that has taken on national media coverage has evolved so far.
Among the new infrastructures being built for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, the bobsled track has in fact sparked a highly participatory public debate, becoming an emblem of short-sighted policies that use community assets in favor of a few.
If the announced cost of the facility will well exceed 100 million euros, the number of Italian practitioners will not reach sixty unitsincluding bobsleigh, luge and skeleton (male and female).
Yet, just across the border, in Innsbruck and Saint Moritz, there would have been two facilities designed to host the Olympic competitions: a choice that would have protected the Ampezzo valley from unnecessary landscape and environmental damage. Not only that, the hopes that the new plant can pay for itself over the years are completely in vain. The warning cry of the woman was of no use Cesana Pariol bobsleigh track, built for the 2006 Turin Olympics and abandoned a few years after its inauguration.
In this ten-voice volume, the black adventure of bobsleigh takes surprising forms and is told by touching on the most diverse aspects, the contributing factors, the background, the business numbers, the socio-economic consequences that few have thought about. The portraits of the athletes are outlined and the crazy descents described. A bitter, but also ironic journey, sliding on the ice towards the Olympic event.
The book collects the contributions of Luca Andreazza, Michele Argenta, Giovanni Baccolo, Cecilia Butini, Diego Cason, Sofia Farina, Marco Albino Ferrari, Cristina Guarda, Pietro Lacasella, Daniele Loss, Luigi Torreggiani and Mauro Varotto.
“These pages – we read in the editor’s note – they have neither the claim nor the presumption to definitively and exhaustively analyze the story of the Cortina bobsleigh track. There are too many variables in play in this evolutionary phase, in which continuous and rapid transformations follow one another, and too many unknowns about the future of the system to predict its longevity. It is rather the photograph of an instant“.
The entire compensation intended for the authors will be donated, by unanimous decision, to Giovanni Angelini Foundation – Belluno Mountain Studies Centre. The aim is to support those who study the past and present of our mountains on a daily basis to imagine their future.
At the moment the book is available on the People website HERE, at the Trento Film Festival and soon in bookstores.
The illustration on the cover is by Andrea Bettega.
