It’s only been 20 days since her 19-year-old sister died. But Lucrezia Lorenzi is already back in the World Cup. The Italian was in Levi (Finland) this weekend. “Shortly before departure, it started to snow heavily. I was able to see Mati again in these big snowflakes. I found the strength to think of us. She accompanied me until the gate opened,” Lucrezia Lorenzi told “Corriere”.
Matilde Lorenzi suffered a serious fall on her head during training in Val Senales, South Tyrol, at the end of October. She was immediately transported by helicopter to Bolzano hospital, where she died from head trauma.
Lucrezia Lorenzi, 26, experienced a “huge whirlwind of emotions” in Levi. Even the Finnish slalom winner, Mikaela Shiffrin, came up to her “to hug me, I thanked her and she got emotional,” she explained.
All members of the family had agreed for her to return to the white circus. “A mental trainer also helped me regain my concentration. It was a difficult decision to go straight back to the sport that took my sister away from me. But she would never have forgiven me if I had stopped skiing.”
Lucrezia Lorenzi added that the hardest thing in recent days was “meeting so many people in training. That’s where the thoughts came.”
Lorenzi’s parents watched Levi’s race on television. It was a “different” feeling for them. “It was easier. We didn’t have the usual fear of competition, it was another dimension. An inexplicable lightness,” said the father.
Adolfo, like the rest of the family, got a sun tattoo on Matilde’s birthday (November 15). “It wasn’t painful. In the end, it was nice to look in the mirror.”
Lucrezia Lorenzi finished 46th in the first leg of the Levi slalom and therefore did not qualify for the second. But that wasn’t the important thing. What mattered was his courage and the memory of his sister.
