VIDEO SHOWS: INTERVIEW WITH SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER ARIANNA FONTANA, FONTANA TRAINING ON ICE WITH HER HUSBAND AND COACH ANTHONY LOBELLO, FONTANA AND LOBELLO HAVING DINNER WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, FONTANA AT PHYSIO APPOINTMENT, FONTANA JOGGING SHOWS: BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 1.VARIOUS OF SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA GETTING READY FOR TRAINING IN START POSITION 2. VARIOUS OF FONTANA SKATING ON ICE 3. VARIOUS OF FONTANA TRAINING ON ICE WITH HER HUSBAND AND COACH ANTHONY LOBELLO 4. VARIOUS OF FONTANA SKATING ATTACHED WITH ROPE TO LOBELLO BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 20, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 5. VARIOUS OF FONTANA AND LOBELLO AT DINNER WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS 6. MARIA LUISA FONTANA (ARIANNA’S MOTHER) SERVING FOOD TO LOBELLO BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 7. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "First thing is go and see my parents. I need a hug from them. And then obviously food in Italy, it's a big thing. So my mom always asks me what me and Anthony want to have for lunch or for dinner. It depends on what time we're coming home. So that's always a thing. And we always try to use these little moments to get together with not just my parents, but also with my brother, his wife, and other family members and friends." BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 20, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 8. CHILDHOOD PHOTO OF FONTANA HOLDING TROPHY 9. PICTURE OF FONTANA WITH HELMET AS CHILD 10. OLYMPIC ATHLETE OF THE YEAR TROPHY BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 11. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "When I was a kid, I just.. it was the race where you would just start flat from the start and try to hold on as long as you could, you know, and skate as fast as you could for those overlaps and a half. I always liked speed. I always liked to be the fastest. So maybe that's why 500 has always been my favourite distance." 12. VARIOUS OF FONTANA WEIGHT LIFTING IN GYM 13. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "I don't know, maybe when I'm on the starting line, I make myself a little bit bigger and people want to stay far away from me, but obviously it's a really key moment, especially in the 500 metres, and I always try to make sure that people know that I'm not there to play around." 14. SLOW MOTION OF TATTOO ON FONTANA'S ARM (MUTE) 15. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "You know, I can't train like a 20-year-old, so my training needs to reflect that. So Anthony has been really good at it. He's been really good at adapting my training based on how my body is also changing and how it is also responding to some training because we can see that.. at some training, my body takes longer to recover, so maybe we put some certain training in different kind of blocks of training, and close to competition, obviously we avoid those kind of training, so.." BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 21, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 16. VARIOUS OF FONTANA IN PHYSIO APPOINTMENT BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 17. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "It could be the perfect ending because my first game was in 2006, 20 years later, we're back in Italy. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not really thinking about quitting or stopping my career after the games. I never really had yet that feeling that I'm like, okay, you can be done. Maybe I will feel it after this game, after I'm done with the racing. I don't know. I will let you know after the 22nd of February." BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 21, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 18. VARIOUS OF FONTANA JOGGING BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 19. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "I'm really fortunate because a lot of athletes, you know, they go to the Olympic Games, but they don't really get a chance to compete in their own country. And I get to do it twice in my career. So I am.. I feel really fortunate and also proud of everything I accomplished and what I went through that allowed me to have such a long career. And I'm really looking forward because I have this feeling that it's going to be special, for sure." 20. VARIOUS OF FONTANA PUTTING ON SKATES 21. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "For Italians, food is really important, and it's also really important for athletes because it's our fuel. So I always bring food from home, especially bresaola. For the last two Olympic Games, I bought a little meat slicer and I brought with me a big piece of bresaola and every day I would just cut it a few slices and have it every day. And that was a big fuel for me for sure." BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 20, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 22. VARIOUS OF FONTANA ROLLING OUT THE DOUGH 23. FONTANA AND LOBELLO PREPARING DINNER BORMIO, ITALY (JANUARY 22, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 24. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "We put some rules, especially during, like let's just say summer training, where we, when we are far away from competitions. And it's like, okay, at 6 p.m., we don't talk about skating or training anymore. We're like, okay, once a week we go out for dinner, like a date, or go to the theatre, or go for a walk or something. We just try to really separate the two figures, coach and athlete, husband and wife." 25. LOBELLO AND FONTANA TRAINING 26. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) SHORT TRACK SPEED SKATER, ARIANNA FONTANA, SAYING: "It doesn't matter if I'm on the ice, if I'm on the boat fishing, or if I'm playing cards with my family. The competitiveness that I have in me is always there." BERBENNO DI VALTELLINA, ITALY (JANUARY 21, 2026) (REUTERS - Access all) 27. VARIOUS OF FONTANA DRINKING TEA AND LOOKING OUT TO MOUNTAINS STORY: The evening after Arianna Fontana comes home from the European Championships, the kitchen at her parents’ house fills in waves. Cousins, neighbours, children, friends spill in. Plates move, chairs scrape, someone opens another bottle of wine, joyful at her latest short skating title at the championship in the Netherlands earlier this month. Fontana moves constantly — hugging, laughing, scooping her baby niece onto her arm, helping her mother serve pizzocheri and taroz — in the same house where she grew up, in the valley that has never let her be anyone but Arianna. “First thing is to go and see my parents. I need a hug from them,” she says. “And then obviously food in Italy, it’s a big thing.” Twenty years after her debut in Turin, Italy's most decorated winter Olympian is preparing to skate another Games on home ice — no longer Italy’s teenage prodigy, but a 35-year-old nearing what may be her final act in the sport. She was 15 when she won bronze in the 3,000-meter relay at the 2006 Turin Games, becoming the youngest Italian medallist at a Winter Olympics. Now Fontana is heading to her sixth Games in Milano Cortina, where she will carry the Italian flag and arrive with 11 Olympic medals, the most in short track history. “I’m really fortunate … I get to do it twice in my career,” she said of racing before a home crowd. What’s changed since 2006? Almost everything, starting with how she balances "the fire" that made her with the body that carries it. Some of the adaptations are microscopic - shifts in diet, recovery, and timing. “I can’t train like a 20‑year‑old so my training needs to reflect that.” Her husband Anthony Lobello, now her coach, was key to refining her approach. At the rink Lobello whispers tendencies of her rivals- “number one always passes at three laps to go” - until she can feel a race form before the gun. Her blade has a customized rocker - cu... (The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)
