lit a candle 2h agoNever heard of this man until today, read the obituary with my coffee and just sat with it a while. Ninth in the relay at Sapporo in 72, and apparently he used to almost apologise to whoever he beat. That's a kind of grace you don't see much anymore.
Their story
Carlo Favre was an Italian cross-country skier from the Aosta Valley who represented Italy at two Winter Olympic Games, at Sapporo in 1972 and Innsbruck in 1976, and later devoted decades to coaching young skiers. He died on Saturday 14 November 2026 in Nus, the town where he was born,…
Carlo Favre was an Italian cross-country skier from the Aosta Valley who represented Italy at two Winter Olympic Games, at Sapporo in 1972 and Innsbruck in 1976, and later devoted decades to coaching young skiers. He died on Saturday 14 November 2026 in Nus, the town where he was born, aged 77.
He was born in Nus on 2 February 1949 and grew up in the Saint-Barthelemy valley above the town, one of two brothers who would spend their lives in Nordic skiing. Skiing for the Gruppo Sportivo Forestale, the sports section of the Italian state forestry corps, he became one of the leading figures of Aosta Valley cross-country skiing in the 1970s.
At Sapporo in 1972, aged 23, he finished 24th in the 15 kilometres, the best placed of the Italians, and ninth in the 4 x 10 kilometres relay alongside Elviro Blanc, Renzo Chiocchetti and Ulrico Kostner. Four years later at Innsbruck he started the 50 kilometres, but a serious waxing error forced the whole Italian team to withdraw. He also took part in the World Championships of 1970, as a reserve, and 1974. At national level he won the Italian 50 kilometres title in 1972 and 1974 and the 30 kilometres in 1973 and 1974, along with several relay titles, and he won the Marciagranparadiso at Cogne three times.
After his racing career he rose to the rank of marshal in the Corpo Forestale dello Stato in Piedmont. In parallel he coached for the regional committee of ASIVA, the Aosta Valley winter sports association, for about fifteen years, and from 1998 to 2020 he coached the Sci Club Gran San Bernardo of Saint-Rhemy-en-Bosses. He was a national instructor and ski teacher, and he conceived and helped create the Gran Tor cross-country trail at Saint-Barthelemy.
The sports commentator Carlo Gobbo remembered him as a pure skier who won almost apologising to his opponents, a young man from another era marked by an at times embarrassing modesty. The President of the Aosta Valley Region, Aurelio Marguerettaz, and sports councillor Giulio Grosjacques said the region had lost a great man of sport who had represented it with pride at the highest level and then given his energy to young people and to the valley.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Aostasera.
Photos
1Carlo Favre
by People Forever
That line about apologising got me too.