What were you doing when you were 15? If you’re a big follower of ours, there’s a good chance you were skiing, but if you’re anything like me, you were probably still building your way up to becoming a good, solid skier. I was still working on getting comfortable on black diamonds, barely able to make it down a run of moguls without pissing myself.
Albanian 15-year-old Lara Colturi, on the other hand, is getting ready to race in her first World Cup event at the 2022/23 season opener in Austria. Her mother is Daniela Ceccarelli, 2002 Super G gold medalist for Italy at the Salt Lake City Olympics, and her father is a ski instructor.
Colturi is around the same age as Mikaela Shiffrin was when she made her World Cup debut, making the Albanian the youngest world cup debutant since the Vail native.
“My debut comes very soon, it’s true, but I’ve trained a lot for this and I just hope to have fun.” – Lara Colturi according to Olympics.com
The Alpine Ski World Cup first appeared in Sölden in 1993, and the location has marked the beginning of the Alpine Ski World Cup Season for more than two decades. The race passes through around 370 meters (~1214 feet), features between 41 to 56 gates, and skiers reach up to 80 km/hr (~50 mph) on the course.
“I’ve been there many times and I did some practice runs with other skiers. I think I’ll be excited for sure, but I don’t have any particular expectations in terms of results, we have to be realistic.” – Lara Colturi according to Olympics.com
Good luck to you Lara!
Image Credit: Lara Colturi via Instagram