Deborah Compagnoni

Deborah Compagnoni

Deborah Compagnoni in 2010
Personal information
Nationality	Italian
Born	(1970-06-04) 4 June 1970 Bormio, Italy
Height	165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	65 kg (143 lb)
Sport
Country	Italy
Sport	Alpine skiing
Medal record Women's Alpine Skiing Olympic Games 1992 Albertville Super-G 1994 Lillehammer Giant Slalom 1998 Nagano Giant Slalom 1998 Nagano Slalom World Championships 1996 Sierra Nevada Giant Slalom 1997 Sestrières Giant Slalom 1997 Sestrières Slalom

Deborah Compagnoni (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdɛːbora kompaɲˈɲoːni]; born 4 June 1970) is an Italian former Alpine skier who won three gold medals at the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics.

Biography

Deborah Compagnoni was born in Bormio, northern Lombardy, skied with the G.S. Forestale.

Compagnoni soon was noticed for her great talent. Her career was always marked by great successes, but also by great accidents. After her first great victory, the World Junior Title in Giant slalom, and her first podium in World Cup, she broke her right knee in the Val d'Isére downhill. After the surgery operation she decided to abandon the downhill races, where her talent could have permitted even greater successes than those she obtained in her yet victorious career.

Compagnoni won her first race in the World Cup in 1992. She also won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics of the same year, again in the Super-G: however, while racing the Giant Slalom, one day later, she destroyed her left knee.

In the following years she left the fast races (downhill and super-G), confirming herself as one of the best Giant Slalom specialists. Her fragile knees hindered Compagnoni's practice activity and limited the number of victories in the World Cup: however, she always presented in her best shapes for the great championships. In 1994, at the Lillehammer Olympics, she won gold medal in the Giant Slalom, a feat she repeated four years later in Nagano. In 1998 she won also a silver medal in the Slalom, finishing second by only 0.06 seconds.

Compagnoni won the World Champion in Giant Slalom in 1996: in the following year edition she confirmed the title, coupling it with the Slalom one, a deed never accomplished by any Italian female skier. She won a total of 16 races in the Alpine Skiing World Cup (13 Giant Slalom, 2 Super-G and 1 Slalom), plus a Giant Slalom World Cup in 1997.

Deborah Compagnoni is considered the best female skier ever of Italy, equal to famous male winners like Gustav Thöni and Alberto Tomba. The World Cup skiing track in her native Santa Caterina Valfurva has been named after her.

She is married to Alessandro Benetton; they have three children: Agnese, Tobias, and Luce; they live in Ponzano Veneto, Italy.

World Cup victories

Overall

Season	Discipline
1997	Giant Slalom

Individual races

These are her world cup victories.

Date	Location	Race
26 January 1992	Morzine	Super-G
7 March 1993	Morzine	Super-G
5 December 1993	Tignes	Giant Slalom
11 December 1993	Veysonnaz	Giant Slalom
5 January 1994	Morzine	Giant Slalom
8 January 1995	Haus im Ennstal	Giant Slalom
2 March 1996	Narvik	Giant Slalom
29 December 1996	Semmering	Slalom
17 January 1997	Zwiesel	Giant Slalom
18 January 1997	Zwiesel	Giant Slalom
26 January 1997	Cortina d'Ampezzo	Giant Slalom
15 March 1997	Vail	Giant Slalom
25 October 1997	Tignes	Giant Slalom
21 November 1997	Park City	Giant Slalom
19 December 1997	Val-d'Isère	Giant Slalom
6 January 1998	Bormio	Giant Slalom

See also

• List of multiple Winter Olympic medalists
• Italian sportswomen multiple medalists at Olympics and World Championships

External links

• Media related to Deborah Compagnoni at Wikimedia Commons
• Deborah Compagnoni at the International Ski and Snowboard Federation
• Deborah Compagnoni at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• Ski-DB.com - Results - Deborah Compagnoni