Training Camp in Turin, Italy
This camp was the first occasion to get on ice after my club-change from BEC to CP Champéry. I’ve never been to Turin before and was about to spend almost two weeks there. I have found it exciting that my first two weeks as a member of CP Champéry I was about to spend in Turin.
The location of the camp was the famous Palavela arena. I knew the Winter Olympic Games were held there in 2006. 🥇Evgeni Plushenko, 🥈Stéphane Lambiel, 🥉Jeffrey Buttle… and 13 years later Yuzuru Hanyu skated Otonal and Origin on the same ice… I was about to be training in that arena for more than a week. I kept thinking maybe one day I will win a gold medal there too… (I might have been dreaming about all these during the four-hour drive there, because I fell asleep in the car quite quickly. 😂)
The weather was beautiful when we arrived and the temperature was just perfect – outside. The hotel lobby, though, was almost unbearably hot and we had to wait there for our rooms for quite a long time. I knew I would only go there to sleep most of the days, but the ice rink was a bit of a drive in the morning, so we had to get up early, and I knew I would look like I couldn’t get enough sleep for days…
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The building of the arena made a huge impression on me. It was gigantic compared to all the ice rinks I have ever seen. I could tell it was “old”. The lights inside gave me that impression, especially.
It was my first training after two weeks of break. I was very excited. The first lesson I started with was ballet, though. The teacher was very nice. Despite the fact that she could only speak very few words in English, everything went so well. At the end dance is a language, isn’t it?
Then I finally had free ice. It was amazing to feel that ice under my blades. I remember staring at the huge logos of the Olympic Games on the corners, like they were watching, witnessing everything… The whole place filled me with awe…
I worked a lot on my skating skills and also the jumps under the careful attention of my coach and trainers. All skaters were really nice, and I feel like I found friends pretty fast, and we had a ton of fun together. In our free time we visited Museo Egizio, the Egyptian Museum, but I couldn’t really focus on it. Maybe I will go there again some other time.
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Days passed quicker than I imagined. I learned a lot, not only about skating but about Italy as a country, and Turin specifically. Italian food is DELICIOUS. 😋👌
My last day I felt quite sad about leaving. I said goodbye to the ice and the five-rings symbols on the corners, thinking: “One day we’ll see each other again.”. When I got in the car I realized how happy I was to go to see my family before my trip to Champéry. I was also invited to a dinner with the skaters from the Art on Ice show and I was pretty excited about that. The drive home turned out to be unexpectedly long, but at least I had good company. We arrived safe and sound and that’s what matters at the end.
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The little time I had with my family made me realize how much I will miss them in Champéry. And I will miss Oli, our dog a lot too. 😭 So I was a bit torn to leave again. On the other hand, my move to Champéry made my heart beat faster. The camp in Turin was just the beginning. Soon the 2024/2025 season starts and I want to work harder than ever. Less than two years until Milano Cortina 2026.
I couldn’t wait to be on the ice again.
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