Eleonora Dellantonio – that is a name ( and a face) of a new traditional Marchialonga ambassador, better known as Soreghina.
Each year the best & brightest young women of the Fiemme and the Fassa valleys compete for the privilege of being selected to officiate all functions related to what has become a defining event for the area – the Marchialonga race.
The name Soreghina stems from a local legend Tradition has it that ‘a princess’ ought to be sunny in character, sporty and a polyglot
From its rather humble local origins, in 45 years Marchialonga has grown to be premiere skiing event of the winter with 7000+ lucky participants from all over the world. ‘Lucky’ because the race starting slots that go to open sale get booked literally within minutes. It would appear that Marchialionga could double the amount of participants were it not for objective natural restrictions – the course is rather narrow, the path goes straight through the villages ( Eleonora the new Soreghina had grown up with the race – her hometown of Predazzo is where Marchialonga Light has its finish)
Eleonora Dellantonio is 18 and, apart from native Italian, speaks English, Spanish, German and Ladin – important quality for a race ambassador. Alas, she is not a cross-country skier, a – but practices alpine skiing , mountain biking and hiking. Last winter she has taught the basics of alpine skiing to people with motoric disabilities
Marchialonga is not the only mass skiing marathon with its own ambassador – Soreghina has two Scandinavian relatives.
Except that Vasaloppet is one step further – because of the race ‘sacral’ value for Sweds, Kranskulla and Kransmas, as they are known, are announced at the end of each November live on Swedish Television’s top rated morning program Gomorron Sverige.
Kranskulla, female symbol of Vasaloppet predates her male counterpart, Kransmas by 64 years – Lydia Sundin is a current and 93rd Kranskulla while Linus Rapp is “only” 29th Kransmas.
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