FISU student-athletes take 54 medals home from the Milano Cortina Games

With podiums – and 19 Olympic golds – in biathlon, cross country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle & freeski, short track speed skating, snowboard and speed skating, current and past FISU World University Games and Universiade participants made us proud it Italy.

Biathlon

Suvi Minkkinen from Finland claimed the only FISU student-athlete medal in biathlon by climbing on the third step of the women’s 10 km pursuit podium. She has certainly bloomed since her participation to the 2015 Osrblie/Štrbské Pleso FISU Universiade.

Cross country skiing

Norwegian Astrid Slind – who took part to the FISU Universiade in Trentino in 2013 winning a gold and a bronze) – likes the Italian snow! She struck gold with her teammates in the women’s 4 x 7,5km relay.

Curling

Student-athletes excel at strategic thinking, team play and controlling their nerves to remain cool… on the ice. Curling is the sport where they won the most medals with a grand total of 16!

Rasmus and Isabella Wranaa from Sweden started the collection by winning the gold in the mixed doubles, Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin (USA) claimed silver in the same discipline followed by Stefania Constantini for Italy in bronze.

Marc Kennedy won gold in the men’s event with his fellow Canadians, who beat Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammy and Kyle Waddell (GBR), all FISU athletes, in the final. In the women’s tournament, Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg, Agnes Knochenhauer, Sara McManus and Sofia Scharback were crowned Olympic champions by beating Switzerland in the final. And finally Canada’s Sarah Wilkes took the bronze in the women’s tournament.

Figure skating

Another top sport for International University Sports student-athletes. Eleven medals, out of which an incredible six went to Japan. Both Kaori Sakamoto and Yuma Kagiyama won two silvers (as a team and as individuals), Shun Sato added tears and a bronze in individual to his silver medal won with Japan and “home” team Italy won the bronze in the team event with four FISU athletes: Charlene Guignard, Marco Fabbri, Daniel Grassl and Lara Gutman.

But the real superstar was Mikhail Shaidorov from Kazkhstan who surprised everyone – including himself – by becoming Olympic champion. This meant the whole men’s podium was made of FISU student-athletes!

After his understandable emotion, Shaidorov celebrated a few days later with a lot of humour, dressing up as a panda during the figure skating gala.

Freestyle & Freeski

One man, two medals! Japan’s Ikuma Horishima, who took part to the 2019 FISU Universiade in Krasnoyarsk (where he got the gold in the moguls and the bronze in dual moguls) climbed on the Olympic podium twice it Italy too, with a silver medal around his neck in the dual moguls and the bronze in moguls! He for sure managed to have a smooth ride on those bumps!

Short Track Speed Skating

The second best sport for student-athletes at Milano Cortina is… short track speed skating! Thanks to an incredible effort from the Republic of Korea, with the help of Belgium, the Netherlands, Latvia and the USA, 13 medals were won by current or former FISU athletes!

10 went to the Republic of Korea, whose ice queen, Gilli Kim shone bright like a diamond just like during the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games (where she won… 5 gold medals!). She took back three medals (two gold – 1500m and 300m relay – and the 1000m bronze) back to her home country! Minjeong Choi was also crowned for the 300m relay and finished second behind Kim on the 1500m to claim silver. Dohee Noh was the third wonder woman of the Korean 300m relay. Their teammates Jeongmin Lee, Juneseo Lee and Dong Min Shin won silver in the men’s 500m relay.

Latvia was also represented on the podium, with Roberts Kruzgergs winning bronze on the 1500m. Same metal and same distance for USA’s Corinne Stoddard in the women’s race.

Snowboard

Sabine Payer from Austria took part to three Universiade: Erzurum in 2011, Trentino in 2013 and Granada in 2015. In Milano-Cortina, she claimed the silver medal on the parallel giant slalom. Bulgaria’s Tervel Zamirov, who claimed gold last winter at the Torino 2025 FISU World University Games parallel giant slalom took bronze at the Olympic Games. Another FISU “alumni”, Republic of Korea’s Sangkyum Kim (who competed in four editions of the Universiade between 2007 and 2013) left Italy with the parallel giant slalom silver medal around his neck at 37 years old!

Two more medals in snowboardcross for FISU student-athletes. The shiniest one with Alessandro Haemmerle from Austria winning the gold and one silver with Eva Adamczykova from Czechia finishing in second place of the women’s competition.

Speed skating

And let’s slip back onto the ice, for the final sport in which our alumni shone: speed skating. Five more medals, four of them made of the most precious metal. Italy triumphed on home… ice with four gold medals and one bronze). Incredible Francesca Lollobridgida celebrated her titles on the 3000m and on the 5000m with her son in her arms. Her male teammates became Olympic champions in the team pursuit and Riccardo Lorello won bronze in the men’s 5000m.

Congratulations to all those who took part, the lucky winners, but also all the participants, because becoming an Olympian is always a dream come true. And well done for learning precious lesson while competing at the FISU World University Games.

We hope to see many of them next January, at the Changchun 2027 FISU Winter Universiade!