Federica Brignone and the other side of gold medals: a lot of pain, sacrifices and a new operation in sight

Watching her skiing on the snow with an almost disarming naturalness, one might think that winning was, after all, simple for Federica Brignone. Our champion has in fact written an indelible page in the history of Italian skiing and the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics, winning two gold medals that will remain engraved in everyone’s memory. But behind the legend there is a less told reality, made of pain, effort and resilience.

It all started 10 months ago with the serious injury on 3 April 2025 at the Italian Championships in Val di Fassa in which the skier suffered a displaced fracture of the tibial plateau and the head of the fibula, with a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the left knee. A fall that could have marked not only the end of his extraordinary career, but also of his life as it existed before. Yet, her determination brought her back to the slopes, stronger and more aware than ever until she reached a goal that no one could have hoped for. At what cost, though?

A life that is no longer the same as before

After the celebrations, Brignone spoke to Casa Italia journalists without filters about the most difficult period of his career, bringing out the clarity and fragility behind the triumph with surprising words:

I fight monsters. I would trade the two golds for my former life.

In fact, her left leg continues to give her problems. Problems that will not be resolved any time soon, indeed perhaps they will never be resolved. An aspect that those who saw her from home may have underestimated because Federica showed us everything was simple, as if nothing had happened on April 3rd. Brignone, however, wanted to tell the hard and raw truth:

I completely ruined my leg and knee, and every day is a struggle. It will take time, the tibia is no longer aligned, it has a hole. Mine was a multiple fracture, and I never wanted to think about how serious it was. For two months I couldn’t even bend my leg, and even now I don’t know if I’ll be able to play tennis again. So yes, I would trade my two Olympic medals to go back and not suffer this injury.

To accompany her victory over the Tofane there was a roar of joy from the public who, after seeing her clock the first time in the first heat, couldn’t wait for her to cross the finish line to celebrate. But after what happened to her, Federica cannot help but also look at the more psychological side of going down a slope at over 100 km/h, only with skis on, and the risk that can be taken:

During the race you are in a state of maximum alert, like when you are afraid of dying.

The recovery journey

Federica has never hidden how difficult it was to become competitive again. Daily work, hypnosis and discipline accompanied the champion on a long recovery journey made up of extreme training and pain rejected by gritting her teeth. Because success, in alpine skiing and in any other sport, does not allow shortcuts. Every penny earned on the track comes from thousands of descents repeated until exhaustion. The team that supported her was fundamental in all of this:

My luck was to immediately accept what had happened and look forward, stay extremely positive, this was my greatest strength, not only yesterday, the calm I have maintained since April 3rd, I’m not saying it was easy to keep calm but it was. I did it with the work from before. If this had happened to me 10 years ago it would have been much more difficult. The path taken with the people who helped me, with hypnosis, with my brother on the track, with people who don’t work for me but with me.

An (im)possible challenge

An injury that was taking everything away from her, but which perhaps motivated her even more to give 200% to become competitive again. 10 months ago, even just taking part in the Olympics seemed like a mirage, let alone winning two gold medals. Yet our Tiger did it:

Because it was an impossible challenge. It was such a difficult challenge that I couldn’t help but accept. If it had been easier, it probably wouldn’t have motivated me so much. I wanted to prove to myself that I would be able to come back from something truly impossible to do.

Behind those two shining golds, however, there is a very high price, paid in silence between physical pain, daily sacrifices and sacrifices that few really see. And then there is another type of sacrifice, less obvious but equally profound: that of having to give up one’s private life. Friendships, loved ones, free time: everything is reorganized around the objective. When we talk about champions, we celebrate the moment of victory. Rarely do we talk about the endless anonymous days in the gym, the trips without any love nearby, the mental fatigue of remaining competitive year after year, the rides that don’t let you finish that race you were banking on and the criticisms that come from everywhere if the results are not just those that everyone expects.

The future: another operation will be necessary

The results have finally arrived for her and therefore we cannot help but ask ourselves a question: what to expect from Federica Brignone for the future? Now he seems unstoppable, will his season start again from here? The skier certainly has no intention of hanging up her skis and quitting, but she will have to meet with her medical staff to understand whether or not it is feasible to continue competing this year.

Then there is the matter of removing the plate and screws inserted into the leg to fix the fracture. For the moment, Brignone says, the tibia is not yet stable enough to be able to go back under the knife, but sooner or later the time will come to do so. There another hard and difficult path will begin that only those who have already faced it can understand. The prospect of a new surgery brings everything back to the most human dimension: that of an athlete who, even before winning, must heal, recover, rebuild her body.

This is where the rhetoric of the sporting hero breaks down and gives way to reality. Medals don’t erase scars. Pain is not just a momentary passage, but a concrete presence to live with and little changes if it took her 10 months and it would have taken all of us years to recover. Let’s go beyond the rhetoric. These are injuries that affect everyone from athletes to ordinary men and women and often, when you go to bed and close your eyes, plus the joy of that last physiotherapy session is all you went through to get there.

You might also be interested in: