Italiano - English

I was born on the 31st of January 1963 in Paluzza, (near the city of Udine). I was always close to my roots and to my land, the Carnia, five or six valleys in the mountain in the extreme north-east of Italy, a land rich of values, history and people to know....

My mother whose name should be Maria Luisa di Centa, but Marie, always believes herself as Mrs. Unfer (her unmarried second name) expressing a character that is surely an inheritance mine….

Marie is a mix of strength and simplicity, and has a deep self-consciousness and internal harmony. My mum’s wisdom does not come from studying but from being able to know herself well.

My father Gaetano, my “babo” (daddy) is the bush philosopher, Tane. For all of his life he made bread for the small town of Paluzza. He was kneading at night, and during the day he was skiing and teaching other people how to ski.
And it is with this teacher that, when I was only four years old, I put for the first time my wooden red ski pair that he made and painted. Babo is absolutely the only person who gave me the mental freedom.

This the joy, the internal satisfaction and the true values are only some of the presents that my father Tane still does to me.

Then in the family there is Andrea, my older brother who, since he was a little boy, had made a game: organising the Olympic Games. In each Winter and Summer Olympic Games, he organised for me and for him some competitions in the fields around home, even making the ski board and painting the slalom stakes with the right colours. The funny thing is that me and him were the only athletes competing for all nations... I don’t know how, but Italy was always winning, except for jumping from the board and in the cross-country skiing, where Finland was always winning. But in the cross-country skiing it would have not been like this forever…

Andrea was a promising athlete and since he was a boy he was well placed in the national chart. But a bad accident with the motorbike made him leave agonistic sport when he was 18. The use of the helmet was not compulsory at that time, today luckily yes…When Andrea came back from the hospital the only words that came out from my heart were those of the promise that I would have won at his place. Today anyway Andrea skies and he is a coach at a national level.

Giorgio, my younger brother, had clear ideas on sport since he was a child.
He said that he was not so stupid to do so much fatigue like his brothers…
In fact since he was very young he entered the national cross-country skiing team even though he was asthmatic. And he was the one who did not want to fatigue that much!!
Today he is a Carabiniere (Carabineer) he’s in the national cross-country skiing team, won three medals at the World Championships and this year also a Silver medal at the Olympic Games.

With this family I could only live sport as a reason of life.
 Since I was a little girl I had a dream, doing something good in sport.
Since I was nine I started competing with the enthusiasm and the happiness that would have never abandoned me. And when I was none the first victory also arrived.