Lara Colturi, “I would repeat my season exactly the same.”
Lara Colturi with family
“It’s been a great and very intense season. I feel like it already started in July with the races in South America. It’s been long, but really fun,” says the sixteen-year-old Italian-born Lara Colturi, whose first steps in ski racing have been compared by some to Mikaela Shiffrin’s.
Colturi signed on this year and made an incredible debut in the “adult” ski racing world, moving almost directly from children’s races to World Cup.
Colturi chose an audacious and unconventional path, affiliating in May with the Albanian Ski Federation and not with the Italians. A difficult decision, she revealed in previous interviews, but it allowed her to continue skiing with her mum, Olympic Champion Daniela Ceccarelli, and her dad, ski coach Alessandro Colturi.
FIS career began quickly
She started her FIS career racing in Argentina and Chile between the latter part of July and mid-September. Lara secured 28.50 FIS points in her first GS race, then won the South America Cup overall and three disciplines titles.
Forget about multiple seasons running after points at FIS races, followed by competing on the Nor-Am or European Cup until achieving podium results, and only then, starting to dreaming about the World Cup stage.
Under the Albanian flag, thanks to the available “Basic Quota” that each National Ski Association is provided, she could directly access the World Cup. It is an approach more easily understood knowing that in the 2022-23 World Cup opener in Levi, with bib 53, she finished the first run 33rd, only (+0.09) of a second out of qualifying. That was November 19th, only four days after she turned sixteen.
Her winter performances surpassed everybody’s expectations, including hers: “Many positive things came unexpected for me this season; I was just a rookie. I could have imagined nailing some top 30 results, but definitely not finishing several times so close to the top 15.”
SRM reached out to the emerging ski racer journalists reported as “ski prodigy,” “raw ski diamond,” and “baby champion” Colturi and to her mother and coach, Ceccarelli, for an exclusive interview about their fascinating story.
Love for speed
Colturi excelled mostly in GS, ending the season ranked 30th in the World Cup standings even though she missed the Åre event due to injury. She started this season without World Cup Start List (WCSL) or FIS points. However, it is predicted she will start among the top 30 in the first GS of next season due to some veteran women retiring.
Colturi scored her first World Cup points in the Killington giant slalom. By delivering the 4th best second run time, skiing with bib 58, she finished 17th. She then scored four more times, with an impressive 9th-best second run time in the 2nd Semmering giant slalom and the 7th-best time in the final run of the 2nd Krönplatz race.
Fondest 2022-23 memories
When asked about her 2022/2023 best memories, this was foremost in her mind: “My first World Cup speed race in St. Moritz. Everybody told me it was a tricky course, full of bumps, and difficult to memorize. However, I had an easy time there; it all came naturally. I felt like I had known the course my entire life, although it was my first time.” She finished the super-G 35th.
You would be forgiven for thinking she would have mentioned the tech weekend at Sestriere, the ski resort where she grew up and where her family and friends gathered to support Colturi. But yet again, she referred to a speed race: “The Junior World Champs were magic. I was the youngest there and knew I had to face more experienced, faster racers than me. I didn’t expect to achieve those results (fourth in DH, gold in SG, bronze in GS). The courses were new to me; skiing there was fantastic, especially in the speed races.”
The super-G Junior World Champion and the daughter of the 2002 super-G Olympic champion, clearly prefers speed, despite the fact that she was injured warming up for the downhill training run at the Méribel World Championships. “I would repeat my season exactly the same. No doubt, I’ll keep skiing in speed disciplines. After all, super-G is like a GS, just longer. Also, downhill is in the plan eventually, but I need experience. So far, I have skied very little DH.”
From Méribel back to school
Confident from such a promising start, Colturi would compete at the Courchevel/Méribel World Championships to gain experience. “The primary goal of this season was to learn and have fun. So, why not go to the World Champs?”
After Junior Worlds in St. Anton, Austria, in January, Lara clinched back-to-back good results at the Krönplatz World Cup: “I think it was a significant advantage having trained there before on the race hill, something I could do only in Levi because of the (extensive) schedule and also because of poor snow conditions. Even free skiing on the courses was often canceled.”
However, after Krönplatz, she was exhausted: “We decided not to attend the slaloms in Špindlerův Mlýn because I felt tired. My mom organized a slalom session after the Kronplatz races anyway, and I skied well. We trained with other World Cup skiers who were very surprised that I was going home instead of traveling to Špindlerův. I was fast. “But we drove home; I took a break, some time off. Then I resumed training and felt really good when I arrived at Méribel. I entered the downhill training to gain experience on the hill for the super-G but I didn’t really plan on racing the downhill. I would have also raced the alpine combined, but I didn’t have good enough points.”
Season interrupted
Unfortunately, Colturi’s World Championships debut was interrupted. “After I fell, my parents packed everything in the van and took me to a medical check-up. I thought it was okay; I’ll be back for the race tomorrow. But the doctor suggested surgery to repair my ACL (right knee) because I was a skier with many years of races ahead of me.”
Colturi didn’t speak with any media after her injury; only a short press release was distributed. “I was asked for some interviews, but I didn’t feel like explaining, giving details. I don’t want to relive that moment, that day again. I’d rather talk about cooler things than injury, surgery, and post-surgery. I was surprised by how many supportive messages I got that day, literally thousands of them and I couldn’t even reply, but I’m very thankful for that. I immediately reset my mind to other things and I thought, I’ll have more time to study now and do well at school.”
Back to school
Right, Colturi is still attending school. “I like school, and I can do it because it’s a ski college (ski academy) where we can follow the lessons remotely through video recordings. We also have a more flexible calendar. It’s called Ski College Frejus, in Bardonecchia (next to Turin), close to our home. I’m in the third year and I study marketing and economics.”
Colturi doesn’t seem too annoyed that her season ended prematurely: “I’m missing races and I look forward to being back on skis, but now I’ve got the time to do things I couldn’t do the past seven months. I can be with friends and take care of myself. I have more time to relax and focus on my needs instead of following the races, the training, and the traveling. My rhythm and perspective has changed, and I’m more at the center of my activities during this period.”
Destiny
Taking a step back, how did Colturi end up being in the World Cup at sixteen? She explains: “It (skiing) has been a natural choice. We live in the mountains. Our family is very much into skiing. My grandad competed in the Olympics, and, of course, my mum is an Olympian. Everybody in the family skies, professionally or not. Also, my 11-year-old younger brother, Yuri, is a ski addict. I stood up on skis when I wasn’t even able to walk. It’s always been fun. We grew up skiing in the winter at Sestriere and in summer at Les Deux Alpes in France. We also did fantastic traveling. Copper Mountain was great. We went to China twice. South America has been amazing.”
Daniela remembers when Lara was little: “I often traveled to races as a reporter after my career. Lara skied on the kindergarten slopes and between gates when we found some. She entered her first races when she was four with the ski school. She’s had significant access to skiing, but we didn’t structure a ski program in the first years.”
The family skied a lot, not focusing on training but building up a passion and the technical basics: “With Lara, we used to compete among ourselves using extreme carving turns and exploring all the slopes of ski resorts. She appreciates it; recently, she asked to take a break from training and go sightseeing on skis. That’s a good way to enjoy our race pilgrimages and return stronger in the gates,” mother/coach Ceccarelli comments.
Talented in multiple sports
Having reached the highest level at such an early age, Colturi might seem to be only a specialized athlete. But it’s the opposite, as her mum describes: “She tried all the possible sports and disciplines, swimming, climbing, surfing and figure skating, which she also competed in. Through that, she developed abilities and skills also useful for skiing. Lara doesn’t really project herself into results and rankings; she’s more interested in the sport.” Colturi excelled in most sports with only a few exceptions. She confirms: “Sports instructors were enthusiastic, but in sports like cycling, for example, I’ve had it hard.” Her approach is more on enjoying than performing. Mother Ceccarelli sees a big difference between Lara and her younger brother, Yuri: “He wants to win, to become a top skier, like his ski idol Henrik Kristoffersen.”
Born in November, Colturi struggled to emerge in the children’s category races. Knowing she couldn’t win, mum’s goal for her was simply to ski at her best. According to coach-mum Ceccarelli, her later physiological development was not a disadvantage: “I even think it was an advantage, being the smallest of her age group. The more physically developed girls with an advantage took away that pressure we sometimes see in kids, parents and coaches. Lara accepted being beaten even when she skied well; this pushed her harder to improve her skiing ability. The ”disadvantaged competition” lasted until the 2020 season when Colturi was fourteen.” The technical work quickly translated into good results when the physiological gap ended. During the 2020 season, Lara won 20 consecutive children’s races from the regional to international levels.
A larger family with an international background
Alessandro Colturi and Daniela Ceccarelli founded the Ski Club Golden Team Ceccarelli about ten years ago with her brother, sister-in-law, and other associates. This became a larger family where Colturi grew up and trained in good company. Locals and also internationals, young North American skiers joined the club for winter sessions and summer camps at Les Deux Alpes. “It’s been cool training together, traveling and living with other kids. I learned a lot; my English and French improved by spending time with my teammates and friends,” says Colturi. Her parents have always been her coaches, with mum Daniela Ceccarelli in charge of the technique and father Alessandro Colturi dedicated to strategy, course settings and ski tuning. The ski club’s coaches also contributed to Colturi’s development, but the key figures were, and still are, her parents.
Albania opportunity
Regarding the affiliation with the Albanian Ski Federation, Daniela thinks that “it’s an opportunity we got because some young Albanian skiers live where we live. The federation contacted me to develop a program and we decided, as a family, to go for it. Continuing skiing together was our prerogative and having access to all races and flexibility in our program are the other advantages. It wasn’t easy; we had critics, but, after all, skiing is an individual sport. We have invested in offering our kids the chance to compete in skiing if they want to. When we received this opportunity, it seemed logical to continue in this direction with Lara. We want to keep being together, have some fun and do our work. We are satisfied with Lara’s development as a skier and as a person.”
Season one is in the books. Colturi is currently engaged in physiotherapy work and plans to return to skis sooner rather than later and compete again at the beginning of the next winter.
More to come.
About the Author: SR Staff Report
