Eighth medal for Italy at the Beijing Winter Olympics: Omar Visintin's bronze in snowboard cross. The gold went to the Austrian Haemmerle, silver to the Canadian Grondin.
At the age of 32 the blue, after the Park City 2019 world medal, achieves the crowning of a career by giving Italy a historic medal for men's snowboarding since the introduction of snowboard cross at the 2006 Turin games.
Injured in the second World Cup race in Montafon, just after finishing second in his seasonal debut - right on the Zhangjiakou track -, Visintin returned to racing less than two weeks ago at the Cortina d'Ampezzo stage.
Tommaso Leoni instead had to surrender in the semifinals. The 30-year-old from Vicenza practically went hand in hand with Visintin, together in the quarterfinals and in the semifinals where he gave way, ending up in the small final where he crashed - without consequences - finishing in eighth place. Lorenzo Sommariva had finished his adventure in the round of 16, as had Filippo Ferrari, who did not take part in the race due to the after-effects of a blow suffered in qualifying.
THE COMMENT - "For years I have been waiting for this medal, it has finally arrived - rejoices Omar Visintin -. I did a race starting a little slowly and then overtaking, it was not something wanted but depended on the fact that others had started faster than me . Now I know that I am strong. To whom do I dedicate this medal? I have thought about it, and I say that I dedicate it to myself, I really earned it and it is my thing ".
"In Sochi 2014 I arrived as favorite and then I was eliminated in the quarter-finals - he continues - the same thing happened at PyeongChang 2018 and I even went out earlier. Now I finished a little less favorite, but I knew I had a good chance".
"I started in the big final with the awareness that I could have played my cards - says the blue - then reaching the podium is different. Now we rest a few hours to enjoy the result, from tomorrow we focus on the team tests where we are very strong and in contention for another medal ".
And to think that two months ago, after the bad fall in the World Cup on 10 December, his presence in Beijing seemed at risk: "Yes, the elbow injury in December was a blow - Visintin recalls -, because I thought I had to give up the Olympics. Instead, the Fisi Medical Commission managed to work a miracle, and when I was told that I was going to China, I thought only about the track. Certainly the arm is not at its maximum, but a lot it was enough for me to put the bronze around my neck ", concludes the blue.
