Alberto Tomba Returns to the Spotlight at the Winter Games

A few days before he ignited the Olympic cauldron to start the Winter Games, Alberto Tomba greeted his pet rooster near his home outside Bologna and opened a door beside a sign reading “My Happy Place.” He walked into a stone farmhouse he had converted into a wine cellar, saying, “Here, I have 2,500 bottles,” and reached for a giant 1996 bottle of sparkling wine illustrated with a caricature of himself.

Once nicknamed “Tomba la Bomba,” he won three Olympic gold medals and became a national icon with flamboyant stunts—shouting, “I am the new messiah of skiing!,” eating a piece of Christmas cake between runs, traveling with munitions of Parmesan and signing women’s ski pants.

The return of the Games to Italy has put him back in heavy circulation: he appears on magazine covers, has a new book called The Longest Slalom, represents streaming services and luxury brands, and was mobbed by fans in Cortina as he signed hundreds of posters.

Italy, Bologna, Cortina

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