Mickel to carry Olympic Torch
Britain’s top downhill ski racer Finlay Mickel may have the challenge of Kitzbuhel’s Hahnenkamm Downhill to contend with this weekend in Austria, but next week the Scot will enjoy a pleasing reminder of the importance and magnitude of the Olympic Winter Games when he carries the Olympic Flame through Bolzano in the heart of Italy’s Sudtirol.
Mickel - who last week scored his career best world cup downhill result of 10th on Wengen’s Lauberhorn - has been chosen to carry the Olympic torch from Bolzano’s town hall on Tuesday 24th January and will transport it for a short distance watched by local government officials and hundreds of spectators who are expected to turn out to see the flame pass through their town, en route to Turin for the start of the Games.
Finlay will be welcomed by the tourism minister for Sudtirol, the up and coming snowsports holiday region which is Finlay’s principal personal sponsor.
It is an honour which has also been accorded to Kristian Ghedina, the successful downhiller who shares the same personal management as Mickel, who will carry the Olympic torch into his home town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, exactly 50 years after hosting the 1956 Olympics.
“This is a lovely honour to carry out and I am really looking forward to meeting the people of the region. So many of them are knowledgeable ski racing fans and it is great to be going there on the back of my best ever result and being able to give something back to the area which is supporting me.” Commented Finlay whose first Olympic appearance it will be in February, after missing Salt Lake City due to an injury sustained just weeks before, “And in a good way it is a timely reminder what the Olympics mean.”
