The origins of a historic race that has left behind a safe and fun ski mountaineering route in the heart of the Brenta Dolomites.
Carlo Brena
Say Tre Tre and you immediately think of Madonna di Campiglio, of Ingemar Stenmark's victories and the oceans of crowds in the 1990s to see Alberto Tomba, the nighttime video footage, and the prestige of a race that has gone down in history. But the story, or rather the genesis, of the 3Tre begins well before 1967, its debut year.
THE ORIGINS OF A RACE
We are in the post-war years, an Italy in need of reconstruction, rising from the rubble of a conflict that had torn hearts apart but failed to eradicate the passion for skiing in the Alpine valleys. And so, from the ashes of the world war, a small competition circuit was born in Trentino, consisting of a trio of events: a slalom in Serrada di Folgaria, a giant slalom on the slopes of Monte Bondone, and a downhill in Fai della Paganella. This small Trentino combined championship took the name Tre Tre. The first stage in 1950 featured 57 athletes representing Italy, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, the USA, and even Turkey, as the competitions quickly spread beyond the province of Trento, attracting the attention and participation of the strongest skiers of the time. Among them was thirty-year-old Zeno Colò, who won the first two races of the Tre Tre but did not show up for the third race on Bondone, as he was already traveling to the World Championships in Aspen, United States, where he would win the downhill and giant slalom, as well as taking silver in the slalom.
But going back to that day in 1950, Zeno Colò took victory by more than 15 seconds over Cortina's Alverà, in a race where rules, regulations, and safety systems were far removed from those of today. Anyone who imagines the Fai della Paganella downhill run as a modern-day speed test is mistaken, because we retraced the original course and discovered aspects of those competitions that gave us shivers.
GREAT ATHLETES OR SUPERHEROES?
First of all, the adjective 'free' indicates the maximum freedom of interpretation of the route: "The mandatory elements were the start and finish, then what was in between, what kind of trajectories, which passages in the woods, everyone did more or less what they wanted." The speaker is Renato, a friendly gentleman who grew up in the shadow of the Brenta Dolomites, first as a lumberjack and now dedicated to the family bar, and who takes care of a small farmhouse right on the Tre Tre route. Over a bottle of Trento DOC sparkling wine, he tells us a few anecdotes, like the slightly hazy memories of his father, who spent a few evenings with Colò drinking wine, playing cards, and smoking a few unfiltered cigarettes. "It's not unreasonable, but when the foreign competitors descended, the local fans would place pine branches on the route and then remove them when the Italians passed," Renato smiles. And then the tools: wooden poles bent by the heat of boiling water, Kandahar bindings, and leather boots with laces, leaving aside the level of physical preparation of that era. Different times, different competitions.
AT THE TOP WITH THE NICOLINI BROTHERS
We bid farewell to our improvised local guide and continue up the Tre Tre route, which starts at the base of the Santel lifts at 1,038 meters and ends, after 6 kilometers, at almost 2,000 meters at the Selletta. "But if you want to add another 200 meters of elevation gain, you can continue until the lifts arrive," says Elena Nicolini, an Italian ski mountaineering athlete who trains daily on these slopes with her brother Federico, fresh from winning his first World Cup race. The route follows the Tre Tre downhill route; we simply retraced it on the way up, in maximum safety conditions, so much so that it's also recommended for snowshoers and families with children (of course, children who want to walk).
Once we reach the top, Elena points out the Pedrotti refuge, which her family runs, right on the other side of the valley. We can't see it, but we imagine it dormant (it only opens in summer), nestled amidst a crown of snow-capped peaks. We strap on our skis for the descent. For us, a thousand meters of leg-breaking descent on the groomed slopes of Fai, but not before taking a last look to the left: like a shard of a broken mirror, Lake Garda from here resembles a Norwegian fjord.
PS: I still have to investigate the genetically modified Tre Tre titration in 3Tre, but that doesn't take away from the beauty of this experience
