Comelico Cultura    

ORIGINS OF SPORT IN COMELICO

Comelico is surrounded by high mountains and has always faced long snowy winters. Its people had to struggle cultivating slopes to get the minimum necessary to feed all the mouths. Only a few hunters had to chase the chamoises on the high ledges to enrich the poor table with some meat. Naturally they admired the panoramas but would have happily done without all those efforts.
They were the local experts who accompanied and guided the first alpinists who arrived in Comelico from abroad in the final years of the 19th century. From hunters to guides - a different and more remunerative job. Our people did not understand the reason that drove these strangers to come from such distant places and uselessly spend money and energy to reach the top of hostile and impervious mountains. Giuseppe Stanislao Pelizzaroli (Bepi Slao), hunter from S. Stefano, born in 1860, was the pioneer of the guides and alpinists of the valley.
On the front of the 1915-18 war, one of the local people -considered mad rather than reckless -found himself wearing skis and attending alpine skiing courses which entailed more climbing than going downhill. With the advent of Fascism, the Town Council lent the skis to the high achievers in order to increase strength and boldness in young people. Thus the carefree alpinists were soon followed by other people who flung themselves down steep slopes risking breaking their necks or crossed the lawns quickly wearing those “strange things” on their feet. Decent people whispered and were indignant about this, while the young and the children run to see the strange afternoon performances of the skiers who often had spent the morning loading the sledge (lioda) to take down wood and hay from high woods and lawns. 
The same soldiers skiing in winter were busy attending alpine walking and running competitions in summer. Towards the end of the '30s the first alpine skiing and walking competitions took place in S. Stefano and Padola. At the same time our first students came back from boarding schools of the nearby towns for summer holidays and started playing football on the hidden lawns in order not to annoy the owners of the land. In the small squares of the villages they used to play with a small ball called balè, which often ended up breaking the first light bulbs and windows. The children could have the
balè confiscated, be fined by the municipal guards and finally undergo corporal punishment by the parents.
In the 50s skiing and alpinism became more and more respected and popular. In 1968 the first unexpected Olympic bobsleigh gold medal was won by an athlete from Comelico and this was followed by numerous others that in the 90s took our athletes to the height of the world cross-country skiing. 
A motorcycling champion from Padola - not very known in the valley - unexpectedly opened the motorcyclist era of the sport in Comelico.
In the following pages, we will attempt to describe in more detail all the heroes in sports from the origins to our day.