The No. 1 Italian, Corrado Ampezzan

July 21 , 2008

Corrado Ampezzan achieved his eighth Worldloppet Master last March at Birkebeinerrennet and became the foremost Italian with a comfortable lead to the second. Corrado was born in 1938 in Valle di Zoldo (between Cortina d’Ampezzo and Venice). As all kids in that area, he practiced alpine skiing including many giant slalom and slalom races, but also some XC races. With the passing of years he gradually discovered that his real passion was XC skiing. The arrival of Marcialonga created the breakthrough; Corrado participated in the second edition in 1972.

At the age of 15 Corrado moved with his family to Germany where his father managed an ice-cream parlor in the small town of Werl near Dortmund in Westphalia. (A curious fact is that practically all inhabitants of Valle di Zoldo are ice-cream makers, in summer they live in some German city and move from November to early March back in their valley where many of them practice XC skiing. That is the case, for example, of Costantino Costantin, the leading Marcialonga Senator, i.e. the first in the classification of those who have skied all Marcialongas since inception, summing up the times). Later Corrado took over the ice-cream parlor and worked in Werl for 45 years until he retired in 1998. Meantime he had moved his winter residence to Cortina where he now lives permanently.

In Werl there was a small ski club. Corrado motivated other members of the club to do XC skiing; 8 of them became WL Masters. Corrado’s first Master was in 1991 at American Birkebeiner. He enjoys this sport, travelling around the world and feels that it keeps him in good health. A particularly happy event occurred last winter when he received in Mora the medal for his 10th Vasaloppet. At the finish he was told to go to the race office where he got the souvenir medal and a red Mora horse with the congratulations of the organizers. “For ten minutes I felt like a champion”, he said.

Of course Corrado is a Global Worldloppet Skier; he was registered as the 11th skier in the world having accomplished the feat of skiing all 14 Worldloppet events.

To keep in shape during the summer season, Corrado mainly practices bicycling. The mountains around Cortina offer an interesting terrain for that. Sometimes he also makes a “via ferrata” or a climb with his friends. In 2000 he joined Berlin to Rome by bicycle in 13 days, with a group of friends. In 2001, the year when the Euro started, they bicycled from Brussels to Venice in 12 days.

During the 2008 winter Corrado participated in 11 Worldloppet races and totaled more than 600 km. On bicycle he pedals around 1200 km per year.

This page was last revised on October 15, 2008