Maurizio Margaglio

Biography

One day Maurizio came home from school, anc chechink his backpack to see if he had messages from the school or things like those, I found and ad from the ice rink inviting kids to its skating classes,giving all the informations,etc… At first when I found it I was almost throwing it away, I thought maybe to avod all the problems with taking them to classes, the costs, and so on... But before doing that I preferred talking about it, so I asked my sons (Maurizio has a brother, Massimiliano, 17 months younger) and they immediately said "yes, yes, it would be nice", so we first talked with dad, then brought them to the rink and enrolled them - so when Maurizio was ten years old, on the 18th of March, 1985, they both put on a pair of skates for the first time.

After the first lessons with Marina d'Agata, Maurizio was immediately turned to the group of Roberta Conca, and began doing dance. Right from the beginning I loved this group, there was a good athmosphere and I was happy he was having this experience. The end of the three month's class came very early, and theorically evrything could be over... but the teacher proposed a summer camp in Cavalese, to keep them skating... and that's where evrything really started, where the passion was born and all the adventure began. Back home after the holidays, in September, we had to decide wether to send the kids skating again or not - Maurizio told me "yes" immediately, he was always ready to do everything, to try... "let's see how it goes, if I get to find a partner..." So I enrolled them with the CPRM club; at the beginnin they were both doing solo competitions, and I admit I found quite funny to see them dancing on their own... Maurizio was already doing well, winning his category's competitions. A bit depressed for never finding a partner he stopped skating for a while, taking on karate. Roberta Conca was not convinced, though, and kept asking him to come back on the ice, until Mauri actually went back to the skating classes, hoping to find a partner now - and he actually began finding girls to dance with! Unfortunately not with everyone of them it goes well - there is the one who stops after a competition, the other who doesn't even coplete the summer camp...

In 1990 he changes rink and coach, finding himself in Brgamo working with Paola Mezzadri who pairs him with Claudia Frigoli, as a junior couple. They skate togeter in this category for three seasons, finally winning - the pair was succeddful from the start. Switching to the senior category proves to be a difficult passage, because all of a sudden the results at competitions are bad - with judges suggesting Maurizio to look for a new partner... Maurizio and Claudia discuss this, and decide to go on training - keeping the door open for any new possibility might come for any of them.

In the very same period Barbara was skating with Reani, but they were having some troubles too, and after seeing Maurizio skate she had this intuition and from two couples with problem a new great pair was born, that's Barbara and Maurizio. Their coach Paola mezzadri immediately saw their potential - together they are brilliant, effervescent, thrilling anyone watching them with their great performing speed and their strong character. Their first competition, in St.Gervais on August 27th, 1994, is like an explosion: used as we were to the scarce results the other Italian couples had always had in this competition, we were totally shocked and thrilled by Barbara and Maurizio's victory. The first national championships they took part to were the beginning of a series which saw them winning every edition they entered, and in this specific occasion they earned their spot at Europeans , where we get the most definite confirmation of the quality of the couple: we waited for them to be placed in the end of the ranks, as the other couples had, but they immediately jumped to the tenth place!! It was so unexpected, and such a fantastic result for a couple at his debut, so relatively unknown to the judges.

They started a journey of constant progress, without false steps... every year they were moving a little up the ranks, until they got in a good fifth place at their home Europeans in 1998 in Milan, with some help from Tatiana Tarasova; she came to Italy to work with them, putting together the basis of those which, with the work of Paola and Roberto, and of Ludmilla Vlasova, were to became their finished programs. Also important was Barbara and Maurizio's original choice of working with ballroom dancing champions to build the original dances - that's a thing that lots of other couples didn't think of doing. Next year the fourth place brought us to a crucial point: the program was beautiful, was applauded by anyone seeing it, but in the end the judges didn't seem to appreciate it that much, and this was like a little stop - was it still possible to get on the podium?

Next season started with a big surprise, their victory at Skate America with the new free "Lord of the Dance"… it was so unexpected that for me it is still the most exciting result of that year - even if of course we cannot forget that both in Wien and in Nice they placed second - we would have been happy with a third place, but they jumped a whole step of the podium... in Nice they were even first after the original dance, but anyway the silver medal was already a hystoric result, especially in front of such a difficult and strong public…

At this point we could not deny that we were hoping for a victory in the next season, and right from the first competition we cold see how strong and prepared they were. The French's fall in Bratislava did of course help us, but we would have actually preferred them to skate a clean program, not to give critics any point to attack, and to have a sharper victory... Vancouver was difficult too, because we were plagued by physical problem (after Maurizio's knee, now it was Barbara's neck), but luckily everything went fine and we could live this fantastic success - a bit suffering and a bit lauging at the comments of the French tv were we were forced to see the competition (because no Italian tv was broadcasting it!)

Then we have to pass to the big delusion we had this year, which started already badly in the Grand Prix, and then there was the disaster of the Grand Prix Final. That was a very difficult moment, to start again working after such a hard event, but at europeans things seemed to be going a little bit better - we still were not winning, but at least we put the Russians and Lithuanians behind us again. Olympics...a nightmare! By the time we got to the final, we were just hoping to bring the bronze home, but with the fall all seemed compromised - luckily the Canadian's fall assured aou medal, which is anyway a hystoric result, a big finish in itself...