The Cross-Country Skiing World Cup will be held in Düsseldorf on Saturday, December 3 and Sunday, December 4, 2011. Specifically, these two days will feature an individual sprint race and a free-technique team sprint race.
On this trip to Germany, the Italian team will see the debut of two young athletes. Coach Silvio Fauner has in fact called up Janmatie Kostner, born in 1988, from South Tyrol, who will join his teammates for the men’s races, and, for the women, Greta Laurent, born in 1992, from Gressoney. Young Greta, in particular, is in her last year as a junior and comes from the same area as Arianna Follis, one of the leading figures of the national team.
The credit for these important call-ups goes entirely to these young athletes, who have shown, through their consistency and their hard work, that they deserve this opportunity at international level.
An interesting fact is that in recent years it has happened several times that the new national team call-ups for the World Cup have come from the Aosta Valley, in particular from the team of the Asiva Committee.
The coach of the Asiva cross-country team, Marco Brocard, says he is very pleased with Laurent’s call-up, which brings enthusiasm and satisfaction to her Aosta Valley teammates. At the same time, however, he stresses that the credit for this result goes entirely to the athlete, who will therefore take on the World Cup Sprint.
The Italians called up for this two-day event on the Düsseldorf circuit are Renato Pasini, David Hofer, Federico Pellegrino (Fiamme Oro), Jeanmatie Kostner and Fulvio Scola among the men, and Gaia Vuerich, Elisa Brocard (Cse), Virginia De Martin and Greta Laurent (Sc Gressoney MR) among the women.
The two days of racing follow this programme:
– Saturday, December 3, 2011, from 12:45: men’s and women’s free-technique Sprint
– Sunday, December 4, 2011, from 13:00: men’s and women’s free-technique Team Sprint
For cross-country skiing fans, then, next weekend looks interesting from many points of view, with special attention to the young athletes who will compete for our national team. For Greta Lauren and Janmatie Kostner, on the other hand, the World Cup races could mark the start of a career at the very highest level.
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