European champions and bronze world medalists Sara Conti and Niccolo Macii were the heavy favorites for the Lombardia Trophy. Although their short program went relatively smoothly, there was a frightening moment when they fell during a lift in the free program. Nevertheless, they completed their routine and won the competition.

Solène: How do you feel about your result?

Niccolo: It was challenging, but we are thrilled with our result. The first competition of the season is a challenge. We are happy with the short program score, especially because we do a star lift instead of a reverse lift this year, which scores less.

Sara: We are happy with the twist, too. We have had some difficulties synchronizing it, but it was well done and with a good height.

Niccolo: The Italian summer tour helped us improve on that. We had to do a triple twist in the opening act with few steps or crossovers before.

Sara: The light and the fog did not help either!

Niccolo: We were skating our short program every night without much warming up. The ice was not always of a good quality. Anyway, all of this made us stronger, and we gained confidence. As for the free program, I lost my focus. Sara was too much forward, and I kind of fell on her. I am so proud that she managed to do the death spiral level 3 afterward.

Solène: You changed your short program. Can you tell us about the choice of music?

Niccolo: Our coach, Barbara Luoni, always wanted me to skate on this music, even before when I was skating with my former partner. The initial idea was to use this music for the Olympics. This year will be a tryout for this short program. As you know, the Olympics will be in Italy, and of course, we aim for a medal. This year, we will keep the same free program as last year. Next year, we will change both programs and for the Olympic Games, we will see what worked well for us in the previous years.

Solène: This year, everyone is expecting a lot from you. How do you feel about it?

Niccolo: We talked about it together. Since last year, everything has changed for us. The pressure is much intense. But we have always been expecting a lot from ourselves. We cannot always skate like we want to, but we will fight every time to bring medals home and be happy with our performances. Before going on the ice in Bergamo, I told Sara, “Inside the boards, it’s just you and me. Outside is another world”. We focus on ourselves, and we don’t look around.

Solène: What are your goals for this season?

Sara: It’s a secret! (laughs)

Niccolo: We would like to confirm our good results from last year and improve them. You can easily guess now! Of course, we would like to be world champions one day, but there is a long way ahead of us. Last year, we did not expect such high results. Now we have a feeling we can make it. Maybe not this year, maybe next year, we will see.

Solène : Perhaps in 2026…

Niccolo: Nothing would make us happier than an Olympic medal, whatever the color.

Solène MATHIEU - Skate Info Glace