Pietro Piller Cottrer is a cross-country skiing athlete competing at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics for Italy.
Pietro Piller Cottrer grew up in the mountain region of Belluno which fostered former Olympic cross-country skiing stars Maurilio de Zolt and Silvio Fauner. Piller Cottrer's first experience on skis came not on the trails, however, but on the slopes, at age five. He would take lunch to his father Agostino's work place in the high hills above their hometown of Sappada, riding a cable car up and skiing back down. He still calls Sappada home, together with his wife Francesca and two children Fabio and Marta.
Piller Cottrer's Olympic debut, at the 1998 Nagano Games, was memorable for the wrong reasons. As the youngest member of a star-studded team, he competed in only one event, the 50km freestyle. He was in second place at the halfway mark when he fell on a downhill and got tangled up in some protective netting at the bottom. He lost his skis, hat, sunglasses and almost three minutes, and finished 16th.
A more gruesome accident in Piller Cottrer's life happened in 2001, when he chopped off the tip of his left index finger while chopping wood. Fortunately, he recovered quickly, and was even able to joke about it. After winning his first Olympic medal—a silver medal in the men's 4x10km relay—the following year, he wore a large, red, foam finger on his wounded hand.
At every major international competition since 2001, Piller Cottrer has skied the third leg (the first freestyle leg) for Italy in the relay. At the 2002 Salt Lake Games and the 2006 Torino Games, he took over with his team in a non-medal position and handed off to the anchor-leg skier in much better shape. His second-best leg time in 2002 helped Italy to silver, and his leading leg time in 2006 paved the way for an easy Italian victory in front of an adoring home crowd.
Piller Cottrer won the men's pursuit event at the test event at Whistler Olympic Park in January 2009, thereby becoming the first Italian male cross-country skier to win six World Cup races in a career. However, at the post-race press conference, the man some call "Killer" voiced criticism about the course: "It's so easy and [there are] too many curves... amazing curves, like U-curves. You have all the space you want here. It's a shame. I have to admit the previous Olympic courses were better. If they made this up as new, they could do something better." Later, he toned down some of his gripes.
Piller Cottrer has competed on the World Cup circuit since 1995. However, he captured his first career World Cup crystal globe—for finishing first in the distance-event Cup—in 2008-09. In the competition, he edged out Switzerland's Dario Cologna, the overall Cup winner, by twenty points, the narrowest margin of victory in the discipline since 2002.
Pietro Piller Cottrer grew up in the mountain region of Belluno which fostered former Olympic cross-country skiing stars Maurilio de Zolt and Silvio Fauner. Piller Cottrer's first experience on skis came not on the trails, however, but on the slopes, at age five. He would take lunch to his father Agostino's work place in the high hills above their hometown of Sappada, riding a cable car up and skiing back down. He still calls Sappada home, together with his wife Francesca and two children Fabio and Marta.
Piller Cottrer's Olympic debut, at the 1998 Nagano Games, was memorable for the wrong reasons. As the youngest member of a star-studded team, he competed in only one event, the 50km freestyle. He was in second place at the halfway mark when he fell on a downhill and got tangled up in some protective netting at the bottom. He lost his skis, hat, sunglasses and almost three minutes, and finished 16th.
A more gruesome accident in Piller Cottrer's life happened in 2001, when he chopped off the tip of his left index finger while chopping wood. Fortunately, he recovered quickly, and was even able to joke about it. After winning his first Olympic medal—a silver medal in the men's 4x10km relay—the following year, he wore a large, red, foam finger on his wounded hand.
At every major international competition since 2001, Piller Cottrer has skied the third leg (the first freestyle leg) for Italy in the relay. At the 2002 Salt Lake Games and the 2006 Torino Games, he took over with his team in a non-medal position and handed off to the anchor-leg skier in much better shape. His second-best leg time in 2002 helped Italy to silver, and his leading leg time in 2006 paved the way for an easy Italian victory in front of an adoring home crowd.
Piller Cottrer won the men's pursuit event at the test event at Whistler Olympic Park in January 2009, thereby becoming the first Italian male cross-country skier to win six World Cup races in a career. However, at the post-race press conference, the man some call "Killer" voiced criticism about the course: "It's so easy and [there are] too many curves... amazing curves, like U-curves. You have all the space you want here. It's a shame. I have to admit the previous Olympic courses were better. If they made this up as new, they could do something better." Later, he toned down some of his gripes.
Piller Cottrer has competed on the World Cup circuit since 1995. However, he captured his first career World Cup crystal globe—for finishing first in the distance-event Cup—in 2008-09. In the competition, he edged out Switzerland's Dario Cologna, the overall Cup winner, by twenty points, the narrowest margin of victory in the discipline since 2002.