The azzurrini – Italy’s youth athletes – have been selected to represent the Italia Team at the 16th winter edition of the European Youth Olympic Festival, an event dedicated to athletes aged 14-18 to be held in Friuli Venezia Giulia from 21-28 January. 

The CONI National Board today named the Italian squad line-up that will take part in the event, to be once again hosted in the country 30 years after the first edition held in Valle d'Aosta in February 1993.

Italy, as host nation, will compete in all 12 disciplines with a total of 109 azzurrini (made up of 56 boys and 53 girls)  who will compete against over 1,200 athletes representing 47 nations. The standard-bearers at the opening ceremony scheduled for Saturday, 21 January in Trieste's Piazza Unità d'Italia will be Luca Libener and Giorgia Todesco. The former, a Nordic combined athlete, had already been selected for the previous edition, held in Finland, but had been unable to compete due to injury. Giorgia, meanwhile, forms part of the hockey team and, born in 2009, is the youngest member of the Italian entourage. The Head of Delegation is Elisa Santoni, alongside deputy heads Pauline Mellet, Andrea Morgante and Federico Zaratti.

For the first time an edition of the European Youth Festival will feature Freestyle – with its specialities Slopestyle, Big Air and Skicross – as well as Ski Mountaineering, a discipline linked to Italy partly because of it making its five-ring debut at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympic Games. The entire Friuli region and the nearby towns of Spittal (Austria) and Planica (Slovenia) will be involved, making up a total of 11 competition venues. Udine will host the closing ceremony on Saturday 28 January.

The CONI-organised hospitality house Casa Italia will also be present at the European Youth Olympic Festival. The revived concept, for the first time aimed at youth participants, with involvement from the 2023 EYOF athletes, will open its doors to all the participating delegations, the Organising Committee and the European Olympic Committees.

The venue of this innovative edition, aimed heavily at a young audience, will be Tarvisio, with the Casa Italia media factory combining with new forms of media and content creation. Its aim is to create a strong core of content generated by young people to give them opportunities to form communities. Workshops and interaction with the EYOF young ambassadors will allow the youngsters to live and breathe one of the first top-level sports events of their careers, inspiring them to pursue their goals, guided by the Olympic Movement’s fundamental principles.

The competitions involving the azzurrini, as well as the two ceremonies, will be broadcast live on ItaliaTeamTV, CONI’s OTT platform. 

The 2023 EYOF Friuli Venezia Giulia picks up the baton from the Finnish edition at Vuokatti, held from December 2021-March 2022, where Italy finished with a record tally of 20 medals: 5 golds, 8 silvers and 7 bronzes.

This is the full list of those selected:

Curling (4)
Alberto Cavallero, Andrea Gilli.
Rebecca Mariani, Giorgia Maurino.

Hockey (40)
Nicolò Bono, Miro Calvani, Elia Carissimi, Iacopo Carlin, Tobias Chizzali, Tommaso Constantini, Alex Curti, Gianmarco Fraschetta, Noah Frick, Andrea Gesumaria, Simon Helfer, Jakob Kirchler, Maximilian Oberhuber, Matthias Pardatscher, Stefano Piechenstein, Villi Pisetta, Samuel Sanoll, Matteo Sulmona, Rosario Tolomelli, Alex Venturi.
Maddalena Bedont, Federica Boaglio, Olivia Cambruzzi, Anna Corte Sualon, Olivia De Bertoli, Aurora De Fanti, Matilde Fantin, Emma Fortarel, Martina Gay, Annalisa Giuliani, Miriam Hackhofer, Manuela Heidenberger, Emily Innocenti, Ginevra Eloise Leger, Carlotta Mellarè, Eleonora Pisetta, Nelly Schmid, Giorgia Todesco, Aurora Varesco, Nicole Varesco.

Figure skating (1)
Anna Pezzetta

Short track (4)
Alex Maestri, Daniele Zampedri.
Sara Martinelli, Chiara Rodondi.

Biathlon (8)
Michele Carollo, Davide Cola, Adam Ferdick, Nicola Giordano.
Carlotta Gautero, Eva Hutter, Nayeli Mariotti Cavagnet, Fabiola Miraglio Mellano.

Nordic combined (6)
Luca Libener, Felix Mair, Manuel Senoner, Bryan Venturini.
Giada Delugan, Greta Pinzani.

Freestyle (8)
Thomas Auer, Valentin Auer, Luca Castellaz, Paolo Piccoli.
Alessia Ambrosi, Sofia Disertori, Desi Rizzoli, Carolina Maria Vitale Cesa.

Ski jumping (4)
Davide Moreschini, Martino Zambenedetti.
Noelia Vuerich, Martina Zanitzer.

Ski mountaineering (8)
Erik Canovi, Umberto Ferrazza, Marcello Scarinzi, Martino Utzeri.
Melissa Bertolina, Caterina Elisabetta Cioccarelli, Vanessa Marca, Martina Scola.

Alpine skiing (8)
Glauco Antonioli, Pietro Broglio, Jacopo Claudani, Jakob Franzelin.
Sofia Amigoni, Tatum Bieler, Giorgia Collomb, Ludovica Righi.

Cross-country skiing (8)
Niccolò Giovanni Bianchi, Tommaso Cuc, Gabriele Matli, Federico Pozzi.
Martina Bonacorsi, Marit Folie, Anna Maria Ghiddi, Marie Schwitzer.

Snowboard (10)
Octavian Buda, Tommaso Costa, Marcello Grassis, Rocco Moresi, Mike Santuari, Elias Zimmerhofer.
Allyson Natalia Donò, Aurora Drolma Dusi, Anna Victoria Mammone, Sophie Rabanser.