Manuela Angeli

The daughter of an Olympic bobsleigh specialist, Manuela Angeli was born in Cortina into a family where sport was a big part of her upbringing.

As an only child, Angeli was immersed in an international environment from an early age because the family ran a hotel that hosted guests from all over the world. Also, her parents split their time between Cortina and Vienna.

Angeli’s father Amedeo, believed strongly in sport but also in her education and she went to the interpreters’ school in Geneva and learned to speak five languages. Her passion for skating began during her time at school in Switzerland, and her career was as rapid as it was brief. It began at the age if 12 in 1951 and ended the year after the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, when she was just 17.

In those few years, Angeli took part in two European Championships in singles, finishing 22nd in Bolzano (1954) and 16th in Budapest the following year. Her list of achievements also included a silver and a bronze medal at the Italian Championships.

Angeli was only 16 when she took part in the Cortina Games, finishing 21st overall in the event won by the American Tenley Albright. Disappointed by that result, she only skated for another year, partly due to the difficulty of balancing sport and studying.