Our fantastic weekend in Cortina with the Milka Team had more than one surprise in store for us. As well as our meeting with Elena Curtoni, a young skier on the Italian national team, we had the pleasure of spending a wonderful day with a skier who made Italian skiing history, South Tyrol’s Isolde Kostner.
After winning the gold medal at the Junior World Championships, Isolde Kostner made her World Cup debut in the 1993/94 winter, managing to take her first podium just one month after her debut. From then on came an avalanche of victories and medals that made her the pride of Italy.
Back to us… After watching the downhill race in Cortina we went to the restaurant “al caminetto”, which is right next to the Olimpia piste (where the World Cup is held); around midday Isolde Kostner arrived and joined us so that we could all have lunch together (us bloggers and the whole Milka staff).
After lunch we immediately put our skis on and started carving through the snow of Cortina in the company of the outstanding South Tyrolean skier. It was truly an honour to be able to ski with Isolde Kostner, an incredible experience that will surely leave an indelible memory!
everyone ready for a fantastic day of skiing with Isolde Kostner
At the end of the day’s skiing we went down to the finish of the “Olimpia delle Tofane”, where the Cortina staff had organised a bit of a party with music and mulled wine. Could anyone say no to a nice glass of mulled wine? Absolutely not, given the magnificent atmosphere and the cold that was setting in as the sun went down.
Having loaded “bag and baggage” into the minibus, we returned to the hotel where, after a few hours’ break, we went down for an aperitif in the hotel lounge overlooking the Tofane piste. After a few minutes Isolde Kostner arrived and, together with the Milka team, we chatted a bit about skiing and winter tourism. Something we didn’t know, and found out, is that after ending her career Isolde devoted herself completely to her family and her hotel. Together with her husband she runs a charming 3-star hotel in Selva di Val Gardena (Hotel Soraiser); it is a family-run business, so there is a lot of work, especially during the ski season, when skiers from all over Italy (and Europe) come up to Val Gardena to enjoy the slopes of the Sella Ronda.
While talking about these very topics, she told us how in peak season the Sella Ronda looks like a real motorway, with skiers everywhere, whereas once the “top” weeks are over the slopes become nice and empty and you can ski in peace. It is precisely this heavy influx in the peak weeks (and the low turnout in the remaining weeks) that leads many lift operators to close the season even when there is still plenty of snow on the ground and the slopes are in perfect condition. Keeping so many kilometres of slopes open does not pay in terms of costs (snow groomers, staff, electricity), and so the choice is often made to close the season “early”. Following on from this, we took the opportunity to ask her which, in her opinion, are the best ski resorts in Europe; the answer was “the resorts of the Dolomites”. At first we thought it was an obvious answer (given her “Dolomite” origins), but then Isolde explained that her preference comes from the fact that, in her view, the snow and the runs in the Dolomites are kept in better condition because the ski area belongs to several owners. What we see as large ski areas are in fact consortia in which many private owners put their own ski lift at the service of the resort. This pushes each individual operator to keep lifts and slopes at top quality in order to satisfy skiers “and tempt them” to try the slope again. A healthy competition that keeps the ski resorts of the Dolomites in the best possible condition, which instead does not happen in the large Austrian ski areas, where piste preparation and maintenance are carried out by the “big ski area”, which looks after them systematically without paying much attention to the characteristics of each slope and lift.
During the aperitif we also had the chance to show her the MondoNeve.it website on the tablet we had with us. Browsing the site, Isolde spotted the Hotel Sud-Ovest, where she remembers staying during her time in Sestriere for the ski races.
Isolde Kostner browses MondoNeve.it
After this little interlude we all moved on to the restaurant “La baita Fraina”, a cosy restaurant furnished in Alpine style with a magical atmosphere. A special room had been reserved for us, with a crackling fire, Milka decorations and a very talented musician/singer dressed in Tyrolean clothes.
Milka dinner in Cortina d'Ampezzo
During dinner Isolde Kostner told us many stories from her skiing career; one of the most moving was certainly the story of when she fell during a training session in Lake Louise (Canada), ending up in the safety nets. Of the fall – Isolde tells us – I don’t remember much except that my skis crossed; I lost consciousness and only came round when I heard the helicopter arriving. The closer it got, the stronger the wind became, blowing the snow around and making it almost hard to breathe. Isolde continues – when I realised the helicopter was coming I thought “ah, I must have fallen, how nice, now they’ll lift me up and I’ll get to ride in a helicopter”; in a way I was “happy” and I didn’t feel the pain. After being taken away by helicopter – Isolde concludes – I fully regained consciousness and started to feel the pain.
The fall at Lake Louise left her with a concussion that forced her to stay out for a full 12 months. Isi also puts this long recovery down to the fact that in her career she had, fortunately, fallen only a few times and therefore had little experience of rehabilitation behind her.
Dinner went on with more of Isolde’s stories: we discovered that she absolutely loves Canada (where she won many races), she told us about summer training on the snows of South America (where there is not a living soul and you spend weeks immersed in the “wild” surroundings of the Andes) and finally she told us that one of the things she found hardest in skiing were the jumps, which she only learned to do well after a few years.
After dinner we returned to the hotel, where we said goodbye to the very kind Isolde Kostner, who had kept us company throughout the whole day on Saturday, January 14, 2012. It is a date we will certainly never forget. Isolde was extremely kind and very courteous, answered our questions without any problem and it was truly a pleasure to spend a day with her on the snow of Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Isolde Kostner and Davide from MondoNeve.it
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