(ANSA) - One of the rising stars of world figure skating has been named Italy's flagbearer for next year's Winter Olympics in Turin.
Visibly moved and close to tears, 18-year-old Carolina Kostner said "it's a lifetime dream" as the head of Italy's Olympic Committee (CONI) unveiled its decision. Kostner, who won bronze at the World Figure Skating Championship in Moscow in March, added: "It is a very great honour to represent Italy and young people around the world."
"I'm really looking forward to the opening ceremony on February 10."
The skater, who is the daughter of a hockey international and a skater from the northern Italian region of Alto Adige (South Tyrol), is the second Kostner to carry the flag for Italy.
Her skiing cousin Isolde, twice world Superg champion, was the flag-bearer at the last Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002.
"This decision is a great surpise," Kostner said after CONI chief Gianni Petrucci made the announcement.
According to insiders, Kostner was up against Salt Lake luge gold medalwinner and five-time world champ Armin Zoeggeler as well as top slalomist Giorgio Rocca and reigning cross-country Olympic champ Gabriella Peruzzi.
"We chose Kostner after a wide-ranging selection process," Petrucci said.
Kostner said the first thing she would do now is show the flag to the youngsters at the Gaslini Children's Hospital in Turin, for which she has done charity work.
Kostner was born in the Alto Adige resort Ortisei in 1987 and has been training and living in the German resort of Oberstdorf since she was 14.
She scored her first international wins in 2002 and came tenth in the 2003 world championships.
Last year she came fifth in the worlds before taking the bronze this year.
Kostner has a trainer from the former East Germany and a Canadian choreographer.
She speaks German, English and French as well as the South Tyrol dialect Ladin, which she often uses with her parents.
"It's a really old dialect that has no word for cellphone, for instance," she says.
Ladin is a Romance language that developed in some Alpine valleys from a Germanic tribe's tongue and the Latin of their conquerors.
The Turin Olympics, the first in Italy for 50 years, will take place in and around the northern Italian city from February 10 to 26, 2006.
