Le Donne di Cortina 1956

Grand Hotel Savoia

With Anna Comarella, Ambra Pomarè, Wendy Siorpaes

Free admission until seats are filled

There is an unpublished story of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina. It is the story of the women who participated in that event in various roles. They were not many, but they were present not only as athletes. They are women about whom not much has been written then and even after.

For this reason, on the eve of the return of the Olympics to the Ampezzo valley, it seemed right to Antonella Stelitano and Adriana Balzarini to remember them, in a formidable gallery of stories, through a thorough research effort. There are women referees, team leaders, and coaches. There is a torchbearer who accompanies the journey of the flame on skates, a woman speaker, and the journalists.

And then there are the interpreters, the secretaries, the girls responsible for awards and cultural or musical projects, the godmother, and the women from the town, engaged in telling their places as best as they can. But also the one who will guard the flag that flew in the stadium for fifty years and the woman who took care of editing the film dedicated to that event.

There is a woman designing the integrated image of the Olympic Cortina. From Marisa Bonacossa to Alberta Vianello, passing through the oath of Giuliana Minuzzo Chenal, the authors finally arrive at the athletes: among them is the Cortina native Manuela Angeli, who, seventy years later, shares with us her "Cortina 1956." In a dialogue with two contemporary Ampezzo athletes, Anna Comarella and Wendy Siorpaes, it is a journey into memory that becomes a living account of female presence at the 2026 Games.

Antonella Stelitano is a member of the Italian Society for the History of Sport, the National Olympic Academy of Italy, and the National Council of the Italian Fair Play Committee. She is the author of several volumes with which she won the Bancarella Sport Award (2021) and the National Prize for Sport History Mario Alighiero Manacorda (2016) and has been awarded at the National Literary Competition of Coni. Among her books are Le Nazioni Unite e lo sport (Cleup, 2024), Una lama infallibile (Ediciclo, 2020), Le Olimpiadi all’ONU (Cleup, 2012); Olimpiadi e Politica (Forum, 2008). With Tognon J., she wrote Sport, Unione Europea e Diritti Umani (Cleup, 2011). She is a Bronze Star for sporting merit from Coni and a Knight of the Republic.

Adriana Balzarini, a sports historian, is the vice president of the Panathlon District Italy. She has a Bronze Star for merit from the Italian Paralympic Committee, won the Domenico Chiesa Award in 2018, and the Priz Communication Walter Perez Soto award in 2016. She has organized exhibits such as Emancipation of Women through the Olympic Games and Women and Motorsport. She is the author of essays and publications and participates in conferences on women's issues in sports and the paralympic world. An expert in the history of skiing, she has been a Race Judge for alpine skiing and a motor sports commissioner for the Rally.

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