Verónica María Ravenna

Verónica Ravenna
Full name	Verónica María Ravenna
nation	Argentina Canada
birthday	19th February 1998 (age 22)
place of birth	Buenos Aires , Argentina
Career
status	active
Placements in the Luge World Cup
Debut in the World Cup December 2016  Overall World Cup ES 24. ( 2018/19 )  Challenge Cup ES 11. 2018/19
last change: end of season 2019/2020

Verónica María Ravenna (born February 19, 1998 in Buenos Aires ) is a Canadian-Argentine luge competitor who competes for the Argentine Federation.

Verónica Ravenna moved to Vancouver , Canada with her family when she was six years old . She attended Whistler Secondary School . There she started tobogganing at the Whistler Sliding Center in February 2009 at the age of eleven , after learning about tobogganing on a school trip. In 2014 she was about to join the Canadian junior squad when a clavicle fracture prevented this step. She lives in Whistler .

From the juniors to the Olympics

In 2014, Ravenna won the bronze medal at the Canadian Junior Championships and became provincial champion of British Columbia .

At the end of 2014, Ravenna received an invitation from the Argentine Federation to start in the Junior World Cup for them from 2015 . Ravenna accepted the invitation and started an international race in Oberhof for the first time in January 2015 , immediately finished sixth and relegated more than a dozen well-known drivers to positions behind them. After a weaker race in Igls in 25th place, Ravenna in Winterberg, in fourth place, missed her first podium by just one place. In the overall standings, she was 15th in only three races with 126 points.

Ravenna at the 2016 Youth Olympic Games

In 2015/16 Ravenna started regularly in the Junior World Cup, but only achieved single-digit results in five races of the season in Sigulda and in Altenberg as eighth. Participation in the Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer has been a career highlight to date . With her seventh place she achieved one of the best results in Argentina's Olympic winter sports history.

She started the 2016/17 season in Calgary with notable results in the Junior World Cup. She finished fifth and seventh in the two races. For the races with the team relay, she added Leon Felderer and the double Ivan Nagler & Fabian Malleier from Italy. They were able to win the first of the two races in their composition, in the second race they missed another podium in fourth. In the week before Christmas 2016, Ravenna made her debut in Park City in the Women's World Cup . As tenth of the Nations Cup race, she qualified for the main race and was able to finish 16th in this. So she missed the first qualification for a sprint race of the top 15 by just one place in her first race. It was also the America-Pacific Championships in 2016 , in which Ravenna took seventh place. At the 2017 World Championships in Igls, she came in 23rd place; in the U-23 class she was tenth. After the season she was 13th in the overall ranking of the Junior World Cup, 31st in the ranking of the Nations Cup and with 45 points 35th in the overall World Cup ranking.

Ravenna (center) at the finish line after the second run at the 2018 Junior World Championships

Ravenna as the standard bearer at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics

In the next season too, Ravenna initially started as part of the 2017/18 World Cup . With 35th place in Winterberg and 22nd in Calgary, however, she failed to qualify for the Nations Cup. The races in Calgary were also the 2017 America-Pacific Championships , with Ravenna coming in eighth. Also in the races in the Junior World Cup afterwards, the results were poor compared to previous results: 10th place in Igls and 20th in Winterberg. The 25th place at the Junior World Championships 2018 in Altenberg was not a good result, but it left 23 other starters behind, who were no longer allowed to compete in the second run, in which Ravenna fell from 23rd place to 25th place and was last in the second run. Ravenna was the last to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang . In South Korea, after the first run, she was still on a promising place as 22nd, in order to qualify as 20th for the final fourth run. As 26th of the second and 24th of the third run she came in 24th overall. At the graduation ceremony she was the flag bearer of Argentina.

With the elderly

Since the 2018/19 season , Ravenna has only competed with women in the performance area. At the beginning of the season she missed the main race as 36th in the Nations Cup. It was the only time she couldn't match it this season. Only in the races after the New Year at Königssee and the season finale in Sochi , in which she did not compete, was she always at the start in the World Cup races. Her best result on the series was an eighth place in Whistler. In the overall ranking of the Nations Cup, she was eleventh with 199 points. In Whistler and Lake Placid she finished 25th in the World Cup, and 22nd in Calgary, Sigulda and Oberhof. Ravenna achieved her best result in 17th in Altenberg. With 115 points, she was 24th overall. In Lake Placid the America-Pacific Championships 2018 took place at the same time , in which she was eighth. At the 2019 World Championships , she was 24th and missed the second run of the top 20.

Ravenna at the finish of the Nations Cup race in Igls in November 2019

In the 2019/20 season , Ravenna was able to roughly maintain the level of the previous year. At the start of the season in Igls, she again missed the main race as 20th of the Nations Cup, which she was able to achieve at the following World Cup station in Whistler, home of Whistler, to finish 21st in the main race. It was also the 2019 America-Pacific Championships , here Ravenna once again finished eighth. The best result of the season was an 18th place in Lillehammer. With 110 points, she and Olena Smaha from Ukraine shared 29th place in the overall World Cup ranking.

Web links

Commons : Verónica María Ravenna  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Own website (English)
• Verónica María Ravenna in the database of the International Luge Federation
• Portrait on the website of the Comité Olímpico Argentino (Spanish)
• Portrait on the website of the Ente Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.diarioimpulso.com.ar/ : CON VERÓNICA RAVENNA EN EL LUGE SE COMPLETÓ LA MISIÓN OLÍMPICA ARGENTINA DE INVIERNO EN PYEONGCHANG 2018. Accessed March 7, 2020 .