OLYMPICS: Figure Skating - No regrets for Italy's Conti and Macii as duo miss medal after team bronze

Italian figure skating duo Sara Conti and Nicolo Macii said they felt no regrets despite seeing their hopes of an individual podium in front of a home crowd disappear on Monday, in one of the few missed opportunities for Italy at the Milano Cortina Games

Conti and Macii finished sixth after delivering an imprecise free skate that failed to overturn what Macii described as their worst performance of the season in the short programme the day before.

Italy’s first pair to win a European title, taking gold in Finland in 2023, the duo went on to deliver the country’s first world championship podium in pairs skating with bronze medals in 2023 and 2025, and arrived the Games as medal contender.

"A medal was absolutely within reach, but it’s competition, it’s sport. It could have gone better, but it was our first Olympics,” Milan-born Macii said.

Conti said the pressure weighed on them despite the backing of the home crowd, and she did not shy away from acknowledging it.

“We expected it to go better, but there’s no turning back now,” she said.

Former partner off ice, Conti and Macii helped lift Italy back onto the Olympic figure skating podium for the first time since Sochi 2014 with the bronze in the figure skating team event last week, contributing to the host nation’s record haul of 23 medals.

“It’s been twenty really intense days, without a break, and we are really tired. We didn’t even celebrate the medal. Now we finally will,” said Macii.

-Reporting by Elvira Pollina;Editing by Shri Navaratnam/Reuters