Deborah Compagnoni

Deborah Compagnoni

Deborah Compagnoni in 2010
Personal information
Nationality	Italian
Born	(1970-06-04) 4 June 1970 (age 46) 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.

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

Compagnoni soon attracted attention for her great talent. Her career was always marked by major successes, but also by serious accidents. After her first major 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 surgery she decided to stop competing in downhill races, where her talent could have permitted even greater successes than those she obtained in her still outstanding 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 speed disciplines (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 arrived in her best shape for the major championships. In 1994, at the Lillehammer Olympics, she won the 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 Championship in Giant Slalom in 1996: in the following year's edition she repeated the victory, alongside winning with the Slalom title, a feat 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.