Federica Brignone leaves Carabinieri and returns to Courmayeur roots

Federica Brignone has left the Carabinieri sports group and returned to Sci Club Courmayeur, the club where she grew up, as she prepares for the next stage of a career still shaped by recovery from her serious 2025 leg injury. The Italian submitted her discharge documents in August, with the departure becoming official in recent days, according to Race Ski Magazine.

The decision ends an association that began in 2007, when Brignone joined the Carabinieri aged 17. It is an unusual step for an athlete still pursuing her competitive career, particularly one who won two gold medals at this year’s Milano Cortina Olympics.

“Thank you to the Carabinieri sports centre, which accompanied me through all these years full of success,” Brignone said. “At this point in my career I have decided to leave; I will return to skiing in the colours of the club where I grew up.”

Her words distinguish the administrative change from a sporting farewell. Brignone is returning to civilian club membership, not announcing that she is finished with racing. Whether—and when—she can compete again remains a separate question, dependent on the recovery of her left leg.

A return to the beginning

For Courmayeur, the change brings a double Olympic champion back onto its membership list. For Brignone, it reconnects the closing stages of her career with its formative years.

The Courmayeur Monte Bianco Ski Club is over a century old. Founded in 1912 by a group of cross-country skiers, its first president, Dr. Mario Sincero, not only signed the papers but also accompanied the athletes to races. Those snows were the home of Osvaldo Picchiottino, coach of the Italian women's team in the 1960s and father of Rudi, the club's technical director for over thirty years; Glorianda Cipolla, an Olympic medalist at Grenoble in 1968; Richard Promotton, Ninna Quario, Paola Marciandi, Matteo Belfrond, Alberto Schieppati, and Marco Albarello. In 2012, the centennial year, there were over three hundred members, two hundred and fifty of whom were children in competitive training.

The transition is already visible in Italian federation records. Race Ski Magazine reports that the new FISI app lists her under Sci Club Courmayeur, although her international FIS profile still showed Carabinieri when its report was published. The discrepancy reflects records being updated at different speeds rather than evidence of a different competitive nationality or national-team status.

The most important distinction is affiliation. Her discharge concerns the military organisation and sports group to which she belonged; it does not, by itself, establish a change in her availability for Italy.

Nor has Brignone publicly set out a detailed explanation for the timing. Her statement thanks the Carabinieri and confirms her return to Courmayeur, but does not identify a dispute or a specific commercial reason for leaving.

Almost two decades in uniform

Brignone’s Carabinieri career ran alongside her emergence as one of Italy’s leading Alpine skiers. After joining in 2007, she entered the organisation’s winter-sports section in Selva di Val Gardena.

Her results also brought advancement within the force. On 1 October 2022, she was promoted to vice brigadier in recognition of her competitive achievements. On 22 December 2025, she took the oath as a marshal following an extraordinary promotion for “exceptional merits” in sport, according to the Carabinieri statement quoted by Race Ski Magazine.

That recent promotion makes the departure particularly striking. Less than a year later—and after the most celebrated performances of her career—she has chosen to end the relationship while remaining an active athlete.

However, the known chronology should not be turned into an explanation she has not given. The fact that she submitted the paperwork in August establishes when the process began, not why she decided to leave.

Olympic gold did not end the injury story

The club change comes during another demanding period of rehabilitation.

On 3 April 2025, Brignone crashed in the giant slalom at the Italian Championships in Val di Fassa. She sustained displaced fractures of the tibial plateau and fibular head in her left leg, together with a cruciate ligament injury, requiring surgery and an extensive recovery.

The injury followed her overall World Cup title in 2024/25 and cast serious doubt over her participation in the home Olympics. Instead, she returned to World Cup competition shortly before the Games and won both the super-G and giant slalom in Cortina. At 35, she became Alpine skiing’s oldest Olympic gold medallist.

Those results created an extraordinary sporting comeback, but they did not mean her leg had fully recovered.

In late February, FIS reported that Brignone was still dealing with substantial difficulties following the fractures. She then ended her season in early March to concentrate on rehabilitation rather than continue through the remaining World Cup races.

The distinction between competitive success and physical recovery is central to understanding her current position. Two Olympic titles demonstrated what she could achieve in exceptional circumstances; they did not remove the underlying medical problem.

Another operation, another uncertain timetable

On 25 August 2026, Brignone underwent a further procedure to remove the plate and screws from her left knee. The operation followed persistent discomfort after her return to competition.

By November, Race Ski Magazine described her as preparing to return to skiing after the removal of the metalwork. Its report did not provide a confirmed race date.

Brignone had already made clear earlier in the year that any further season would depend on her health. In an April interview with Olympics.com, she said: “If I show up, it will probably be my last season.”

That was a conditional assessment, not a confirmed retirement timetable. Read alongside the latest club announcement, it suggests a skier keeping the possibility of another campaign open while accepting that her body will determine what is realistic.

Her return to Courmayeur therefore supplies a new affiliation for a possible comeback, not proof that a full race programme is imminent.

No confirmed explanation beyond a personal choice

Reporting on the departure has noted that Brignone’s injury comeback has become the subject of a film. Race Ski Magazine raises that development as a possible factor in her decision, but does not establish a connection. It should not be treated as the confirmed reason for her discharge.

What is on the record is simpler: she has thanked the organisation that supported her for almost 20 years and chosen to return to her original club at this stage of her career.

That leaves several matters unresolved, including the detailed arrangements for her future training and the timing of her next competitive appearance. There is no basis in the announcement to assume that leaving the Carabinieri changes her equipment partnerships, her Italian nationality or her Olympic results.

A different badge for a possible final chapter

Brignone’s move is notable because it reverses a familiar career progression: rather than carrying her original club identity into a military sports group as a young prospect, she is returning to that club as an established champion. Courmayeur now welcomes back an athlete whose most recent major achievement was a double Olympic triumph achieved amid an unfinished recovery.

The next meaningful sporting milestone will be a return to training and, if her health permits, a confirmed race entry. For now, the announcement settles one question: when Brignone next skis competitively, she intends to do so in Courmayeur’s colours.