Torino 2025 takes to the ice at the Palavela and will be Main National Partner of the FISG for the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final, scheduled for December 8-11. The arena that was the scene of the 2006 Olympics will host the figure skating and short track competitions of the Torino 2025 World University Games Winter, just as it did at the 2007 Universiade. There were many ice stars who shone in Torino and who now work with the Federation to help train new champions such as Valentina Marchei, Anna Cappellini and Luca Lanotte.
Those three will also be part of the Organizing Committee’s staff in next week’s event, which is the finals of the senior and junior circuit that will bring to Torino the six best international performers in each of the four figure skating categories: men, women, artistic pairs and dance.
Italy will have a record-breaking presence in front of its audience because among the Seniors it will field Daniel Grassl (already qualified as a junior in the previous Turin final in 2019) among the men, Charlène Guignard and Marco Fabbri in dance and as many as two tandems in the pairs: Sara Conti/Nicolò Macii and Rebecca Ghilardi/Filippo Ambrosini. Among the Juniors, however, it will be Nikolaj Memola‘s turn, who is also vying for a place on the team in the Italian expedition that will participate in the World University Games in Lake Placid from January 12-22, 2023: on that occasion, among other things, Turin will pick up the baton from the U.S. venue ahead of the 2025 event.
This is the comment of the President of the Organizing Committee of the Torino 2025 FISU Games, Alessandro Ciro Sciretti: «This is an extraordinary partnership for us, an unmissable opportunity because we have one of the most important world figure skating events on our territory, indeed in one of the venues that will also be protagonists with the World University Games Winter in just over two years. It was unthinkable not to be present as Torino 2025, and we are keen to support the Federation so that our event is a great opportunity not only for the territory, but also for the whole sports movement, growing the whole system for the benefit of Turin and Regione Piemonte. As president also of Edisu Piemonte, I am very pleased with the agreement signed with the Federation that facilitates access to the arena for those who are part of the regional university system».
These are the words of the President of the Italian Ice Sports Federation (FISG) Andrea Gios: «We are excited and proud to welcome the return of the ISU Grand Prix Final to Turin, a city that boasts a special relationship with ice sports and that will once again find itself the skating capital of the world with all the best international athletes present at the Palavela. It is then wonderful to be able to count on the contribution and support of Torino 2025, an event that we all look forward to with great anticipation and enthusiasm and that encapsulates all the sporting values in which we believe. The focus the young people, their growth and a healthy path capable of combining competitiveness and the desire to compete with a solid and structured educational and training path».
For the entire Organizing Committee team, it will be an opportunity to begin to breathe that air that will pervade the city in just over two years, not least because all the best performers on the planet will be on the ice at the Palavela. And this is not the only ice event this winter that will see the FISU Games Torino 2025 team at the forefront together with the FISG because on February 25, 2023, the Cinema On Ice gala, promoted by CUS Torino with the artistic direction of Opera on Ice, will be staged. It will be the first world event with a positive environmental impact because the amount of CO2 produced during the show will be offset, supporting the Ice Memory project.
«We are overjoyed by this opportunity, for which we thank FISG because it will be a very important event for us. Moreover, it is another step in the project we have with Parcolimpico for the development of grassroots activity on ice for citizens and university students – explains Turin 2025 vice president and number one of CUS Torino, Riccardo D’Elicio -. We want to convince good politics to keep the Palavela open in the summer as well, so that it becomes a reference point for all Italian and world sport, bringing many countries to choose it as a training venue. With the Turin 2025 Games, we want to promote yes the event, but also ice sports, as we already do on a daily basis with our open days that are achieving resounding success in the university world. A few Tuesdays ago, more than 500 students skated at the Palavela over the course of a single day, and we are already working on the gala next February 25 that can convince good politics of the goodness of this project».
