Milano (RWH) Willi Schneider (GER) is the new coach of the Italian skeleton team. As was reported on neveitalia.it, the 59-year-old signed a contract for the period to the 2026 Olympic Winter Games Milano-Cortina so that he will responsible for the Olympic host team.
In the 1990s, Willi Schneider was one of the most successful skeleton athletes. 1998 he won World Championships gold and won the Overall World Cup.
Later Willi Schneider coached the Canadian skeleton national team and won three Olympic medals in Torino 2006 (gold for Duff Gibson, silver for Jeff Pain and bronze for Mellisa Hollingsworth), as well as gold with Jon Montgomery 2010 in Vancouver. He went on coaching the Russian team, winning gold and bronze with his athletes Alexander Tretiakov and Elena Nikitina in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. When Willi Schneider was coach of the Chinese Skeleton team at the 2022 Winter Games, his athlete Yan Wengang won the first ever Olympic Skeleton medal for China.
For Italy, Valentina Margaglio won the first-ever skeleton medals for her nation last winter, finishing third in Innsbruck (AUT) and second in Altenberg (GER) at the 2021/2022 BMW IBSF World Cup. Alongside Valentina Margaglio, Alessia Crippa and Alessandra Fumagalli were nominated for the A team in Women’s Skeleton as well as Amedeo Bagnis, Mattia Gaspari and Manuel Schwaerzer in Men’s Skeleton. ©RWH2022
La composizione delle squadre di skeleton per la stagione 2022/23 - FISI
