Giuliana Chenal-Minuzzo

Giuliana Minuzzo’s first success came at the 1949 Italian Championship, placing third in downhill. The same year she won the Femina Cup, an international women’s downhill and slalom competition. Within a few years she established herself as one of the best skiers at the international level, winning the Femina Cup twice more. In 1951 she won her first Italian title in the giant slalom. In 1952 she participated at the Olympic Winter Games in Oslo in all three events, becoming the first Italian woman to win a medal at the Winter Olympics, with a bronze medal in women’s downhill. Four years later, at the Cortina Winter Olympics, she became the first female in Olympic history (summer or winter) to recite the Olympic Oath on behalf of the athletes. Even though she did not win an Olympic medal, she took a bronze medal in the combined event, which only counted as a World Championship. At her third Olympic participation, Squaw Valley in 1960, she added another medal, winning bronze in giant slalom. She continued competitive skiing until 1963, when she won her ninth Italian title (in slalom) and finished third in giant slalom. Altogether, she won 16 medals at Italian Championships, five in downhill, five in giant slalom and six in slalom, including nine titles.

After Chenal-Minuzzo retired from competition, she opened a sports shop in Cervinia, which closed in 2011. In 2006, fifty years after the Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, she was again part of the Olympic Oath ritual at the Opening Ceremony of the Torino Winter Games, holding the flag while the oath was recited by alpine skier Giorgio Rocca.