The Italia Team that will take part in the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) has been made official. Announcing the Italia Team, led by flag-bearer Flora Tabanelli, were CONI President Giovanni Malagò and General Secretary Carlo Mornati during a presentation held at the Allianz Tower in Milan.

“Here there is the big family of winter sports and ice,” stated Malagò. “A few years ago the Youth Olympic Games did not exist: establishing it was a gamble that has paid dividends, and one that has two remits. On the one hand, to allow young people under a certain age to savour the atmosphere of the Olympics and record, for some of them, their first successes at the Youth Olympic Games before going on to the ”grown-up” Games; on the other hand, to bring juniors closer to Olympic disciplines and new sports. In order to capitalise on the investments and enhance the legacy of the event, whoever hosts the Olympic Games after a few years hosts the same Youth event: this is the case in Korea, we think there are the conditions to do the same with Milano Cortina. The kits are the same, the emblem is the same: the tricolour of the Olympic Committee, the Italy logo, the Olympics. There is great responsibility for the athletes. It is said that the thermometer of a country is also based on results: we start out with lots of potential. Our flag-bearer, Flora Tabanelli, represents a discipline that hasn't historically delivered notable results for us: freestyle is expanding, it is growing, including among juniors. In this case there is a significant family element, as her brother Miro has done very well in the past. Only one Italian before Flora has stood on the podium in the Big Air World Cup. Selecting her was a unanimous choice.”

Flora Tabanelli was visibly excited: “I don’t know what to say, I didn’t expect this. I’m very happy. I feel proud to be Italian and to be able to live this experience.”

There will be 74 Azzurri competing against the world’s best under-18s in South Korea from 19 January to 1 February and, for the second consecutive time, the young Italian delegation will be predominantly female. While in Lausanne 2020, the first winter edition with gender parity, the Italian women numbered 34 out of 67, at the Korean YOG there will be 42 female athletes (56.75%) with 32 males, amounting to a total of 74 athletes (44 registered for FISI and 30 for FISG) who will take part in 13 of the 15 disciplines in the programme (Italy will not be represented in bobsleigh and skeleton).

Numerous children following in their parents’ footsteps feature in the team, especially in luge where Italy will field Manuel Weissensteiner, son of Gerda Weissensteiner, Olympic gold medallist in Lillehammer 1994 and Italian flag-bearer in Nagano 1998, Leon Haselrieder, whose father Oswald won bronze in Turin 2006, and Alexandra Obertstolz, daughter of Christian, who participated in four editions of the Games, and Anastasija Oberstolz-Antonova, an Olympic team member with Italy in Turin 2006. Others include Stella Giacomelli, whose father Guido was European ski mountaineering champion, and who will compete in cross-country skiing, Rebecca Mariani, daughter of Marco, the Italian national curling team member present at the Turin Games and Italy’s official at the Korean YOG, and Marco Pinzani, who carries on the family tradition in Nordic disciplines. Also on the Gangwon team will be Emily Innocenti, who will try to follow in the footsteps of her sister Elisa, gold medallist at the Lausanne 2020 YOG in mixed hockey, siblings Anna and Manuel Senoner (in Nordic combined) and twins Aurora and Nicole Varesco (in hockey).

Gangwon 2024 will be the first winter edition of the YOGs to be held in Asia, building on the legacy of facilities left over from the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. The event will feature a record number of participants: 1,900, compared to 1,788 at Lausanne 2020. It will also be the first Olympic youth event to offer fans an experience in the Metaverse.

Before the presentation ceremony of Italia Team, the athletes who will make their debut in the Olympic event received their kits made by EA7 and were updated on the upcoming Games by Head of Mission Alessio Palombi, Deputy Head of Mission Elisa Santoni, by the Attorney General for Sport Ugo Taucer, with contributions from former Italian skier Matteo Marsaglia, who will participate in Gangwon 2024 in the IOC Athlete Career Transition Programme, and multiple Olympic biathlon medallist Dominik Windisch, in Korea as IOC Role Model. This is the first time that CONI has dedicated an entire day of training and refresher courses to an Olympic team.