Even before the final pairing of the women’s 3,000m speed skating had finished, two-year-old Tommaso was being hurried towards the middle of the track, where his mother had just broken the Olympic record and was on the verge of winning gold on her 35th birthday. When the final pairing of Joy Beune and Isabelle Weidemann had failed to beat Francesca Lollobrigida’s phenomenal time, the Italian sprinted through the bowels of the stadium to fetch her son.
Still basking in the glow of an excellent opening ceremony and the thrill of two medalists in the men’s downhill skiing earlier in the day, the hosts celebrated a new star. Lollobrigida, the silver medalist from Beijing in 2022, struck gold for the first time in her fourth Olympics. She brought the house down at the Milano Ice Park as she crossed the line in a time of 54.28sec, knocking two and a half seconds off Irene Schouten’s record from 2022.
