Italy, bathed almost everywhere by the sea, is also rich in mountains. Just think of the Alps, the Dolomites, the Apennines and the many other mountain ranges scattered throughout the peninsula.

And Italians have always had a good relationship with the mountains. From the great mountaineers, such as the legendary Ardito Desio and Walter Bonatti, to the great athletes of alpine skiing and cross-country skiing. The passion for winter sports is such that Italy is the country hosting the Winter Olympic Games for three times (only the United States has more editions, four): in 1956, in 2006 and the next in 2026.

There is a precise moment in the XIX century that marks the great strength of Italian skiers. It was January 7, 1974 when in the giant slalom in Berchtesgaden (West Germany) five Italians, Piero Gros, Gustav Thöni, Erwin Stricker, Helmuth Schmalzl and Tino Pietrogiovanna reached the top five places in the ranking. The next day, in the Gazzetta dello Sport, the journalist Massimo di Marco calls the five Italians "Valanga Azzurra” (the light blue avalanche), appointing them to the history of sport.

The boom continued until the 1990s, with victories in every competition and specialty by male and female athletes, such as Alberto Tomba and Deborah Compagnoni.

With the new millennium, Italy of skiing has melted like snow in the sun. This March, however, three "snow stars" arrived like a tsunami: Federica Brignone, Michela Moioli and Dorothea Wierer. Three extraordinary athletes who in just four days brought winter sports Italy back to the top of the world, as happened over 40 years ago.

It all began on March 11 with the success of the Milanese Federica Brignone who wins the alpine skiing overall crystal globe. A real endeavor where no Italian female athlete had ever succeeded in history. Brignone was at the top of the general rank and only the stratospheric American skier Mikael Shiffrin could pass her in the last round in Are (Sweden) and then in the final in Cortina d'Ampezzo: two races cancelled due to the Coronavirus emergency that brought the season to a close and gave the Italian skier the title. Until March 11, 2020, only three great Italian skiers won the overall crystal globe, all male: Gustavo Thoeni (1971, 72, 73, 74), Piero Gros (1974) and Alberto Tomba (1995). In a moment of crisis in Italy for the many deaths caused by coronavirus, the skier from Milan gave a great joy to the whole nation.

Two days later, Michela Moioli, the very young snowboarder from Alzano Lombardo, a town near Bergamo, one of the cities most affected by the lethal virus, accomplished another great feat. In Veysonnaz (Switzerland) she won the overall crystal globe in snowboarding, the third of her career after those won in 2016 and 2018. Moioli, already 2018 Winter Olympic champion in PyeongChang (South Korea), won by 1300 points in the final ranking over the Australian Belle Brockhoff.

On March 14th, the last great victory of an Italian in winter sports. Dorothea Wierer, a beautiful girl from Brunico, in the province of Bolzano, excited all Italians in the last race of the biathlon season. In Kontiolahti (Finland) at the last round on the shooting range she reached and overtook the Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff conquering the points necessary to win the second consecutive overall crystal globe of her career. Once again a real feat, because only three female athletes before her had won two consecutive titles: Magdalena Forsberg, Anfisa Rezcova and Eva Korpela. Wierer, who has also won three world titles in her career, has also matched another record: because together with the French Martin Fourcade and Marie Dorin she is the only athlete who has won at least once in all seven biathlon race formats.

Here they are, the three "Snow Stars" who have entered the Olympus of Italian sport like the five skiers of the "Valanga Azzurra".