Alessandro Pittin (born February 11, 1990 in Tolmezzo ) is an Italian Nordic combined athlete . He is the first Italian to win an Olympic gold medal in Nordic combined with third place in Vancouver 2010. In 2015 he won silver at the World Championships in Falun.
Even as a teenager, Pittin was a member of the team that was set up by the Italian Federation for participation in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. Until then he had only participated in the Junior World Championships in 2005 and 2006 and had not yet started in a single World Cup competition . Only shortly before the games did he contest a race in the second-rate B World Cup . At the Olympic Games, Pittin started on his 16th birthday in the Gundersen competition (two jumps and 15 km cross-country skiing) and finished 46th, a long way behind. There was no use in the relay or in the sprint race. After the games, Pittin stayed in the B World Cup and started in FIS races and in the Alpine Cup . In December 2007 he achieved a result in the first-class World Cup for the first time, but remained without points. An increase in performance followed three months later at the Nordic Junior World Ski Championships in Zakopane in 2008 . Alessandro Pittin was junior world champion in the race according to the Gundersen method, won bronze in the sprint and was fourth in the relay. In mid-March he celebrated his first victory in the B World Cup when he was the fastest in the Gundersen competition over 15 kilometers from the large hill in Pragelato ahead of Marco Pichlmayer and Magnus Krog .
In the following World Cup season 2008/09 , Pittin made it into the points for the first time with 23rd place in Kuusamo, Finland . At the beginning of January 2009, Pittin achieved first place in the world class with ninth place in Schonach . At the Nordic Junior World Championships in 2009 in Štrbské Pleso , Alessandro Pittin was the outstanding combiner with two gold medals in the two individual competitions. A few weeks later at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec, too , he showed a strong performance with sixth place in the Gundersen individual on the large hill. He finished the season with eighth place in Lahti and 35th place in the overall World Cup standings.
On January 13, 2012, Pittin in Chaux-Neuve secured the first World Cup victory for an Italian in Nordic combined. The next day he prevailed against the French Jason Lamy Chappuis in the same place . With the third success on the third day of competition in Chaux-Neuve, he was the second Nordic combined athlete after Björn Kircheisen to achieve three World Cup victories on three consecutive days at one venue.
In the 2013/14 World Cup season , with one exception, he was always able to place in the points, reached the top 10 several times and with a third place in March in Falun, the podium. At the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi , he just missed the medal ranks fourth in the Gundersen singles on the normal hill. The start of the 2014/15 World Cup season was not optimal, he even missed the points in Ruka , but was able to improve during the season and win a silver medal in the individual over 10 km Gundersen at the Nordic World Ski Championships in 2015 in Falun, Sweden. At the end of the season in March 2015, he achieved two third places over 10 and 15 km in Oslo and Trondheim .
With just five starts in the 2015/16 World Cup season , Pittin finished the winter in 47th place overall. The 2016/17 World Cup was much more successful , where it finished third in the team sprint together with Samuel Costa in Val di Fiemme in mid-January . In the individual, he regularly reached the points, but could not achieve a result among the top ten. At the Nordic World Ski Championships 2017 in Lahti he was 19th and 20th in the individual competitions, while he reached sixth place in both the relay and the team sprint. In the summer of 2017, Pittin only competed in Tschagguns , but was able to draw attention to himself in fifth. He was also able to confirm this rising form curve compared to previous years with fifth place in the World Cup in Lillehammer at the beginning of December . Two weeks later in Ramsau he missed his fourth World Cup victory by 0.3 seconds in the finish sprint against Fabian Rießle , but was still able to look forward to his best World Cup result in several years as second. Pittin could not build on this performance during the rest of the season and therefore no longer found himself in the top 10. As the greatest Italian hope, he went to the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang , where he finished 19 and 27 in the individual as well as eighth place in the relay.
As a strong runner, Pittin was repeatedly considered a candidate for the top places in the 2018/19 World Cup season , but his jumping performance usually prevented a good overall result. His best individual result was fourth place in the final World Cup race in Schonach . Before that, he took part in the Nordic World Ski Championships 2019 in Seefeld , where he finished 22nd in the Gundersen individual on the large hill. Together with Aaron Kostner he was fifth in the team sprint before he was thirteenth in the Gundersen individual on the normal hill and eighth with the team. At the beginning of the 2019 Grand Prix , Pittin won the first mixed team competition in Oberwiesenthal together with Samuel Costa , Veronica Gianmoena and Annika Sieff .
Since the 2017/18 season, the FIS has been compiling a ranking of the best runners and jumpers in addition to the overall World Cup ranking, which clearly shows that cross-country skiing is Pittin's favorite discipline. He won the trophy of the best runner in 2017/18 as well as in the following season, whereas he only finished 71st and 57th in the jump classification.
Italy
Chaux-Neuve
Oberwiesenthal
Rovaniemi
2010 Vancouver
2014 Sochi
2018 Pyeongchang
2009 Liberec
2011 Oslo
2015 Falun
2019 Seefeld
