Eugenio Monti - bobsleigh champion

Olympic winner who was honoured for sportsmanship

Eugenio Monti won two Olympic medals at the age of 40
after previously being honoured for outstanding sportsmanship 

The double Olympic bobsleigh champion Eugenio Monti, who became the first athlete to be awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for sportsmanship, died on this day in 2003 in Belluno.

Monti was recognised with the award after the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, during which he twice made gestures of selfless generosity towards opponents, both of which arguably cost him the chance of a gold medal.

The preeminent bobsleigh driver in the world going into the 1964 Games and an eight-time world champion in two and four-man events, Monti was desperate to add Olympic golds to his medal collection.

He had won silver in both his specialisations when Italy hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 and was denied the opportunity to improve on that four years later when the 1960 Games at Squaw Valley in California went ahead with no bobsleigh events, due to the organisers running out of time and money to build a track.

Eugenio Monti and his brakeman in the two-man bob
event at the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo

In Innsbruck, Monti and his brakeman Sergio Siorpaes were favourites in the two-man event,  After two runs on the first day, Britain’s Tony Nash and Robin Dixon led the field. On day two, however, the rear axle bolt on their sled sheared off.

They had no spare and would have had to forgo their second and final run of the day - and their chance at Olympic gold - if it weren’t for Monti’s extraordinary sportsmanship in offering to lend them the bolt from his sled. The British pair went on to record the fastest time on that final run and won gold by just 0.12 seconds. Italians Sergio Zardini and Romaro Bonagura took silver with Monti and Siorpaes claiming the bronze.

Four days later in the four-man event, Monti’s selflessness towards his fellow competitors shone through for a second time when the rear axle on the Canadian team’s sled was damaged. Monti sent the Italian team’s mechanics to repair it, with the consequence that the Canadian team won gold, with Monti having to settle for another bronze.

Eugenio Monti led the Italian quartet to a gold
medal in the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble

Monti’s gestures were all the more remarkable given that he was 36 years old and had already suffered serious problems with his knees, arguably running out of time to achieve his Olympic dreams.

There was no more popular champion, then, in Grenoble four years later when a 40-year-old Monti won the gold medal in both the two-man and four-man events.

The two-man contest could not have been closer. At the start of the final run, West Germany I, piloted by Horst Floth, led by a tenth of a second from Monti’s Italy I sled. The Italians went first and broke the track record.

The German response was impressive – but they finished a tenth of a second slower. With both crews recording exactly the same cumulative time, gold went to Italy on the basis of producing the single fastest run.

With an Olympic gold at last in his pocket, Monti went into the four-man contest in buoyant mood and overcame difficult conditions to lead his team to more success. Again, the margin was tiny – less than 0.1secs over two runs – but Monti prevailed to win his second gold, and so became the first man to win both bobsleigh events at the same Winter Olympics.

Monti was made a Commendatore of the
Italian Republic in honour of his career

It turned out to be the final race of his illustrious career. Immediately, he announced his retirement, having won six Olympic medals, nine world titles and the lasting respect of the Olympic family.

In addition, he was awarded Italy's highest civilian honor – Commendatore of the Italian Republic.

Born in 1928 in Toblach (Dobbiaco in Italian), a largely German-speaking municipality in the province of Bolzano in the South Tyrol area of Trentino-Alto Adige, Monti, was the best young Italian skier of his generation. He became known as il rosso volante - the Flying Redhead - and won national titles in slalom and giant slalom, but in 1951 an accident resulted in torn ligaments in both knees, which put paid to his alpine skiing career.

It was then that he switched to bobsleigh. In 1954 he won his first Italian championship and by 1957 was a world champion, going on to dominate the sport in Italy and be a force internationally for more than a decade.

After retirement, he was for a time the manager of the Italian bobsleigh team, while at the same time looking after the skiing facility he ran in Cortina d’Ampezzo, about 32km (20 miles) from Toblach, one of Italy’s major ski resorts and the host of the 1956 Winter Olympics.

Monti died on December 1, 2003 in rather sad circumstances, taking his own life to escape the suffering of Parkinson’s Disease.

Following his death, Olympic track at Cortina was renamed the Pista Olimpica di Bob - Eugenio Monti in his honour. The track was awarded the 2011 world championships

His name was also given to Turn 19 at Cesana Pariol - the bobsleigh track used for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

Cortina d'Ampezzo is a beautiful Alpine
town with a huge draw for tourists

Travel tip:

Cortina d'Ampezzo, often called simply Cortina, is a town in the southern Dolomites in the Veneto region. Situated in the valley of the Boite river,it is a winter sport resort known for its skiing trails, scenery, accommodation, shops and après-ski scene and remains popular with celebrities and European aristocracy. Austrian territory until 1918, it was traditionally a regional craft centre, making handmade products appreciated by early British and German holidaymakers as tourism emerged in the late 19th century. Today, the local economy thrives on tourism, particularly during the winter season, when the population of the town typically increases from about 7,000 to 40,000.  Although Cortina was unable to go ahead with the scheduled 1944 Winter Olympics because of World War II, it hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 and subsequently a number of world winter-sports events. Several films have been shot in the town, mostly notably The Pink Panther (1963), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Cliffhanger (1993).

Hotels in Cortina d'Ampezzo from TripAdvisor

The village of Toblach is in a beautiful valley in the
German-speaking South Tyrol area of northern Italy

Travel tip:

The small town of Toblach, or Dobbiaco in Italian, can be found about 100km (62 miles) northeast of Bolzano and a similar distance north of Belluno in the alpine valley of the Puster river, at an elevation of 1,241m (4,072 ft) above sea level.  The spectacular mountain peaks known as Tre Cime di Lavaredo/Drei Zinnen are located nearby.  The area’s main claim to fame is that the composer Gustav Mahler was living in a tiny wood cabin in the pine forests close to Toblach, in the summers of 1908–10, when he composed his ninth symphony, the last he completed, and began work on his tenth symphony.


More reading:

How Lamberto della Costa became Italy's first Olympic bobsleigh champion

Why Alberto Tomba is Italy's greatest skier

The ex-prisoner of war who became Italy's first Olympic alpine skiing champion

Also on this day:

1455: Death of Florentine sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti

1958: The birth of distance runner Alberto Cova

1964: The birth of World Cup hero 'Toto' Schillaci


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Lamberto Dalla Costa - Olympic bobsleigh champion

Fighter pilot who became first Italian to win a Gold medal

Lamberto Dalla Costa is carried by members of
the Italian team after his victory in 1956

Lamberto Dalla Costa, part of the team that brought Italy its first gold medal for Olympic bobsleigh, was born on this day in 1920 in Crespano del Grappa, a small town in the Treviso province of the Veneto situated where the Venetian plain meets the foothills of the Alps at its northern edge.

Dalla Costa was an adventurous individual with a passion for flying. He joined the Italian Air Force as a volunteer during World War Two and subsequently became a combat pilot who rose eventually to the rank of air marshall.  His exploits in action earned him a silver medal for valour.

When Italy was chosen to host the 1956 Winter Olympics at Cortina d'Ampezzo they were determined to have a successful Games and were looking for improvement in bobsleigh in particular, having competed in all six previous Olympics without reaching the podium.

There was a tradition of looking towards the military to provide the crews for the bobsleigh events and Dalla Costa was selected, even though he had never been involved with high-level competitive sport, after demonstrating the right level of skill and discipline.

It was an advantage when the Games came round that Dalla Costa and his colleagues were able to practise on the Cortina d'Ampezzo track, gaining familiarity with every quirk.  Partnered with another air force recruit, Major Giacomo Conti, from Palermo in Sicily, Dalla Costa registered the fastest times in all four heats and won the two-man bob event by more than a second from the second Italian crew of Eugenio Monti and Renzo Alvera.

Evening in Cortina d'Ampezzo, looking
towards Campanile Filippo and Giacomo

It turned out to be Italy's only gold at the Games.  Monti won silver in both the two and four-man events and went on to become one of Italy's most successful Winter Olympians, winning six medals in total, including two golds at the 1968 Games in Grenoble.

Dalla Costa and Conti's success inspired a new surge of interest in bobsleigh in Italy and for the four winter Games Italy was the dominant country, collecting nine medals in the two events.

Already approaching his 36th birthday, Dalla Costa competed for another year but retired after the 1957 World Championships.  He was awarded the gold medal by the Italian Olympic Committee in 1965. He died in 1982 at the age of 62 in Bergamo.

Travel tip:

Known as the Queen of the Dolomites, Cortina d'Ampezzo began to attract visitors from Germany and Britain as early as the late 19th century but it was thanks to the 1956 Winter Olympics that Cortina d'Ampezzo took off as a favourite destination for winter holidays. It became popular with the rich and famous, with Sophia Loren, Clark Gable, David Niven, Ingrid Bergman, Brigitte Bardot, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton and Alberto Sordi among the celebrity regulars. During the winter months, the population soars from 6,000 to 50,000. The 50th anniversary of the 1956 Games was celebrated this year with a two-day festival called Cortinissima 56.

The military monument on the summit of Monte Grappa
(Photo: Nikmilano CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Crespano del Grappa is a small town situated in the shadow of Monte Grappa, part of what is known as the pre-Alps, to the north of the Venetian plain, rising to 1,175 metres above sea level.  Monte Grappa was the setting for decisive battles during World War One and is now the site of a vast military cemetery, Cimo Grappa.  At the highest point is a monument, opened in 1935, in which are housed the remains of some 12,615 soldiers, with as many as 10,332 unknown.  The monument is composed of five concentric rings positioned one above the other so as to form a pyramid. At the top is the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Grappa.

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