That might not have been the best choice of words. I was typing in a hurry and just wanted to share the news. It had been in the Swiss and Italian press earlier {and presume more in Slovakia}, but had seen nothing in English.
Mauro Pini is a veteran. He's my age: 65-66. He's been in the game for a long time. As noted, he was hired by the Gut family to be Lara's private coach, when she was a teen. I would imagine that he was partially funded by the Swiss Federation at the time as well. LGB was a medalist in the DH and combined at the FIS world champs at 17.
I think that almost immediately thereafter he moved to the Swiss team as the head men's speed coach. So it's NOT like he recently coached Gut. The Swiss speed guys did well. He did well. I believe that he then became the head alpine coach. Things somewhat disintegrated there, can't remember the details, and he became Tina Maze's coach from January-May 2014. In an Olympic year. He only coached her for about 5 months. That, I believe, was the plan.
Team AMaze had not loved her coach before Pini, who had replaced Livio Magoni........the same coach who just was replaced by Vhlova. Small, small circle. Pini also has some coaching assignments that probably do not make his resume. I believe that he was paid by Team Cliff to coach Lila Lapanja, back when she showed great potential, and I don't believe that it lasted a season. I don’t recall details.
I have always heard, depending on the "messenger" two very different opinions of Pini. Some very positive. I have NO idea of what he's been up to, as of late. I assume that he reached out to Petra's team this time around. And went after it. Rumors suggest that he is being paid a "very healthy" amount to run this team and be the HC.
This is a very big year for Petra. It's an Olympic year. I hope that she is well, in good shape, rested and will be ready to hit the snow this season.....and not still burned out as she appeared to be at the end of the season. I can't help but recall Maze's career after the record season.
This may not be controversial, at all. I would assume that there are dozens of high level coaches who would have been interested in this. I assume that they wanted to hire a "big name", as they had with Livio. They seemed to have hired one. Probably the biggest out there.
"Controversial" is probably not the right word.
skiracing.com
