Ski room & co
For an alpine skiing athlete, equipment plays a major role. The ski room is where equipment is prepared or "custom made" like the pit stop of motor sports.
Given the same technical and athletic skills of the skier, different skis could result in different performances. As in Formula One or MotoGP, different solutions for distinctive conditions are needed for each course, as well as for each rider.
For the skis to allow Lara to perform at her best, she’s involved on a daily basis in the research and development process. It is of course a team effort, involving the Blizzard team, from design and production, to racing managers, ski technicians and coaches.
For each discipline, for each snow condition and course, there are many variables at play, and Lara finds herself testing many different options, "about 40 pairs of skis a season. It's a lot of fun for me to be part of this process and see the results," she says.
In each ski training session, not only does she work on the right technique and line, but she also tests different pairs of skis.
To better prepare and select the right equipment, "we also use technology," Lara clarifies, referring to detection and analysis systems.
The ski room is where the skis are fine-tuned with waxing, edge preparation, and many other operations that make the equipment fast, reliable, and performing. It's a continuous and unending process, because it is necessary to retune the equipment after skiing, to make them perform as expected and also to make them faster on the snow.
Alessandro, Lara's father, has always worked in the ski room on her skis. Besides the role of coach, he has also taken care of the equipment, with Blizzard Tecnica.
It is a job of passion for him but also very demanding because of the constantly changing conditions of temperatures and snow, which "sometimes lead him to wake up at night to modify something on the skis, before a race," Lara reveals.
The service man is a strategic role, which from this season has been entrusted to Andrea Vianello. "A true expert," Lara emphasizes, as he has assisted very many athletes in his career. From the 1990s to the present, he has been at the side of professionals who have made world skiing history, from Alberto Tomba to Giorgio Rocca, from Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso to Tina Maze.