(ANSA) - Italy has found a skiing star who looks capable of emulating the great Alberto Tomba - and could make sure the 2006 Olympic slalom gold stays on home soil.
Giorgio Rocca crushed the opposition in the special slalom at Kranjska Gora in Slovenia on Thursday to make it three in a row after winning the season's opening races at Madonna di Campiglio and Beaver Creek.
Rocca finished the two legs at the Slovenian resort 0.66 seconds ahead of second-placed Thomas Grandi of Canada - a huge winning margin for the event. Like his previous two wins, the Italian was trailing Austrian star Benjamin Raich after the first leg, but put his all into the second run to exert maximum pressure on his rival.
The tactic paid off again as Raich pushed himself over the limit and off piste, as he did at Beaver Creek. At Madonna di Campiglio Raich made a decisive mistake in trying to catch Rocca.
"I was lucky, I have to admit it," Rocca told reporters immediately after the event.
"But it's also true that I keep forcing Raich to ski to the limit if he wants to beat me. He tries, but commits errors...Skiing is a sport where you have to go fast and ski well - but also get to the finishing line."
Rocca now has nine slaloms to his name and has surpassed the legendary Gustavo Thoeni for success in the discipline. Tomba, whose record of 35 slalom wins is surely unassailable, reacted to the news by saying: "I told you so, good things come in threes."
"Good for you Giorgio," said Tomba, the last Italian skier to win three straight races - in 1994-95, when he put together an amazing eight-race winning streak in winning the World Cup. Even if Rocca is still skiing in Tomba's mighty shadow, the Italian sports press is sure to be dusting off its superlatives for Friday's editions, if their reaction to Rocca's second win a week ago is anything to go by.
We Have A Phenomenon, shouted Corriere dello Sport on its front page.
Rocca Is A Star Turn was the headline in La Gazzetta dello Sport which devoted a front-page feature to the man from the northern ski resort of Livigno.
"He's now skiing with a four-wheel drive, just like Tomba used to do," La Gazzetta said.
Rocca is unlike Tomba, experts say, because he did not have the flamboyant Bolognese's precocious natural ability. While Tomba started dominating the skiing world when he was just out of his teens, Rocca had to wait until his late 20s to achieve success, after refining his technique with close analysis, tenacity and application, season by season.
He has credited his newfound success to the stability of his family life and a sports psychologist who has restored his self-belief after years of failure. At 30, Rocca is highly unlikely to have enough years left at the top to get anywhere close to Tomba's record.
But his latest feats clearly put him among the favourites for next year's Winter Games on the slopes around Turin.
His wins this season and last have helped him shrug off the derisory tag "Rocca non c'imbrocca" (Rocca can't get it right) because of his early-career habit of making a great first run and messing things up with a mistake on the second.
At the moment though, Rocca is trying to stay focused on the job at hand without thinking too much about his Olympic ambitions.
"I'm enjoying being leader of the World Cup and am taking one race at a time, without trying to do too much," he explained.
"It would be ridiculous to get injured this season - there are so many targets. I'm having fun on the skis and I hope I can make the supporters and the public have fun too." Like Tomba 'La Bomba', Rocca competes in both the slalom and the giant slalom.
He has disappointed in the longer race so far this season. But some of his team-mates have been doing more than OK there, raising more Italian medal hopes for Turin. Last weekend Massimiliano Blardone and Davide Simoncelli placed first and second in the giant slalom at Alta Badia.
Before that, Elena Fanchini posted her first-ever World up downhill victory at Lake Louise.
Italy is currently topped only by Austria in Alpine skiing World Cup victories this season.
"It looks like the Azzurri avalanche is back," Rocca said.
The original Azzurri avalanche (valanga azzurra) was the great slalom quintet of Piero Gros, Gustavo Thoeni, Erwin Stricker, Helmut Schmalzl and Tino Pietrogiovanna that managed to shut out the Austrians on their home slopes and take the first five places at the Berchtesgaden World Cup in January 1974.
Since then all strong Italian skiing teams have been given the 'valanga azzurra' nickname.
Turin and its surrounding mountains play host to the Winter Olympics from February 10 to February 26 2006.
