CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy – For curling, there could be no better host city for the upcoming Olympic Games than Cortina d'Ampezzo.
The city in the Dolomites is home to Italy's first curling gold medalist, reigning mixed doubles champion Stefania Constantini. And the mayor, Gianluca Lorenzi, is a former member of the Italian national team and the son of the founding father of the sport in Italy.
“I will definitely have a reserved seat for each day of the competition,” Lorenzi said in a recent interview with The Associated Press, hinting that he would rather be on the curling rink than greet the various heads of state and VIPs expected in Cortina during the games.
Add to this that the curling venue for the Cortina Winter Games in Milan, which runs from 6 to 22 February, will be the same wooden arena that hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1956 Cortina Olympics, as well as a scene in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, and it's clear that spectators are in for something special.
“Everyone in Cortina has tried curling at least once,” Constantini said.
Constantini's mother, Monica Daluz, is a member of the Cortina city council.
“Whenever Stephie competes, we text each other to keep an eye on her,” the mayor said of Dalus.
Constantini's status makes her a logical choice as one of Italy's four unprecedented flag bearers for the Cortina portion of the opening ceremony.
Only she doesn't think so. Because at 26, Constantini is still relatively young for a curler.
“I'm still at the beginning of my career and I still have a lot of goals that I want to achieve. There are a lot of athletes who are further along in their careers, who have already won a ton and given Italy amazing emotions. So maybe they deserve this great honor,” Constantini told the AP.
However, that hasn't stopped Italian media from speculating that Constantini and Amos Mosaner, her winning mixed doubles partner at the Beijing 2022 Games, will take the award.
While the main opening ceremony is scheduled for Milan's San Siro football stadium on February 6, there will also be a smaller event in Cortina on Friday evening, where women's alpine and alpine skiing events will also take place during the games. And the International Olympic Committee has allowed Italy to have a total of four flag bearers – two in Milan and two in Cortina, one man and one woman at each location.
“Of course it would be a huge honor,” Constantini said. “But we haven’t heard anything yet.”
Until her and Mosaner's golden performance in Beijing, Constantini had a fairly typical part-time job in the center of Cortina.
She worked as a saleswoman at The North Face store on the Corso Italia pedestrian street, a job she kept until the month before the Beijing Games.
“I had a double life back then,” Constantini said. “While I was working in the store, I was also working on qualifying for the Olympics.”
Victory with Mosaner saw Constantini become Cortina's first Olympic champion since bobsledder Eugenio Monti won the combined and four-event titles at the Grenoble Games in 1968.
Cortina's controversial sliding center is named after Monti.
Constantini and Mosaner then cemented their status as the pair to beat mixed doubles when they defeated Scotland – the birthplace of curling – in this year's World Cup final.
“Competing at home in Cortina,” Constantini said, “will be the icing on the cake.”
