Italy's speed skaters, cross-country skiers and luge king Armin Zoeggeler have covered the host nation in gold at the Turin Winter Olympics. But one part of the Azzurri team, arguably the most important, has let the home side down - the Alpine skiing squad.
So far Italy's Alpine skiers have failed to secure a medal of any colour on slopes that they should know better than anyone.
And, barring a miracle in the women's giant slalom Friday, only one person can prevent the team coming away from Turin empty handed - Giorgio Rocca.
After winning five consecutive World Cup races this season, Rocca is some people's favourite to take gold in Saturday's Olympic slalom competition.
The five-in-a-row feat earned the 30-year-old comparisons with Italian skiing legend Alberto Tomba and helped him ditch the derisory tag "Rocca non c'imbrocca" (Rocca can't get it right), which stemmed from his early-career habit of combining a great first run with a poor second one.
But his preparations for the big day have not been seamless.
He drew a blank in his last two pre-Games races and failed to reach the podium in last week's Olympic Alpine combined event.
He came a respectable fifth, but would surely have won a medal if he'd skied with his usual panache in the slalom runs.
As a result he withdrew from the giant slalom and Super G competitions in order to regain his top form in time for Saturday's slalom. Tomba is concerned that the weight of having to make up for the failures of the rest of the Italian Alpine team may now work against him.
"We shouldn't consider Rocca to be the nation's saviour," he said. "Let's not load him down with too much pressure, it may play nasty tricks on him."
Piero Gros, member of Italy's legendary '70s ski team led by Gustavo Thoeni, said:
"Giorgio's going to have to produce the race of his life".
"Otherwise he hasn't got a chance because the competition is so excellent," said Gross, who pipped Thoeni to the gold at the Innsbruck Olympics 30 years ago. Rocca has also told people not to think of him as the Azzurri's white knight.
"I'm Giorgio Rocca, I'm not Italy," he said.
Part of the problem is that good results in the run-up to the Turin Games raised expectations.
As well as Rocca's five victories, Massimiliano Blardone and Davide Simoncelli notched up an Azzurri one-two at the Alta Badia giant slalom World Cup race and Elena Fanchini won the downhill at Lake Louise.
The sports press talked of the return of the 'Azzurri avalanche' (valanga azzurra), the nickname given to the Thoeni-Gros team and revived by a hopeful press whenever other Italian skiing teams show encouraging signs. Today that sounds silly.
"It has been a big flop up to now," said Italian Winter Sport Federation (FISI) President Gaetano Coppi. "We'll have to think about it hard and so will our athletes. It's the Olympics, not any old competition."
So whether Rocca likes it or not, the nation expects him to deliver.
In many ways, he is also skiing for a whole career this weekend - he'll be 34 and probably past his prime at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
If he takes gold he'll earn a place among the greats, if not he'll be remembered as a talent who could not produce the goods when it counted.
"The athletes who go down in history are those who crown their efforts in particularly difficult conditions," read an editorial in Milan-based daily Corriere della Sera.
"So come on Giorgio: go forward with courage and with no fear. Wasn't it true that Atlantis held up the whole world on his shoulders?"
