Portrait of Luca Presti, an Italian Inline-Speedskater

An unusual career

Luca Presti was born th 29th of April 1980 in Cantane (Italy). He is part of a well-known family in skating. His father Pippo was member of the Italian national team in the 70′. His brothers Marco and Massimiliano and his sister Antonella were also active inline-speedskaters.

His sporting career

Luca started skating in the age of five years. Marco Giannini and Luca Antoniel were playing a big role for him. He achieved all goals a skater could dream of. In 1998 Luca reached the senior class. In his first year he already won his first European title. One year later he got his fist world champion title out of five in Chile. It was followed by Oostende (Belgium, 2002), Barquisimento (Venezuela, 2003) and two in L’Aquila (Italy, 2004, 300mTT and 500m on the road).

Luca also won some marathons in the World Inline Cup series. In November 1999 he set a new world record in the 84km distance in 2h14min37sec. His titles were due to his father and coach, who teached him the love for skating. He said that he enjoyed every training session in the age between four and 24. In the age of 24 he moved to the province Venice to join his future wife Sandy Minto, also former inline-speedskater.

In 2007 he won his last world champion title in Cali (Colombia). In 2008 he didn’t take part at the world championship in Gijon (Spain). Due to his obligations referring his family and job, he decided to quit the national team. But he kept on skating and won two more national titles. With 31 years he quit his sportive career.

Professional teams:

During his career he represented various teams:

• 1997: Team Roxa
• 1998-1999: Team Roces
• 2000-2003: Team Salomon
• 2004-2005: Team Bont
• 2006: Team MMCMicro Salomon with his brother Massimiliano, Pier David Romani, Luca Saggiorato, Francesco Zangarini
• 2007: Team Bont/Hyper
• 2008: Inline Center Team
• 2009: Ferrera Inline Team
• 2018 – today : Fila

Pascal Briand talking about his former team mate in team Salomon

“Luca always was one of the most important team members in Salomon. Thank to his excellent acceleration, he was always the leading man in our team train for the pack sprint. It was very stunning because despite to his narrow statue, he could accelerate so fast to a very high speed. I’m still a fan!”

A shortened career ending

After ending his career, he dedicated his life to kinds-training and being a physiotherapist. He is coach in Spinea and lives in Noale.
Narrow his outstanding results, he still feels needing to give back something to the sport. There comes that he accepted an invitation of the Chinese state and took part in a marathon in Beijing in 2018. It felt like a wakening call back to his life as athlete. His fans wanted to take pictures with him and asked for autographs. Two month later, he took part at one more competition. Looking at his age and his family situation it was for sure not an easy affair. (Luca is having three kids: Gianluca, Lorenzo and Mariasole). Thank to his wife Sandy, he was able to come back to the skating world.

Goals for 2019

For 2019, Luca set two main goals. First, he wants to skate nationals in May in Noale. Afterwards he wants to take part at the world championship in Barcelona (Spain). Furthermore, he wants to try out downhill skating. He will take part at the Italian championship in April 2019.

A word from Luca Presti concerning his comeback

“I restarted skating in 2018. In April I skated my first marathon in China for the Fila team. Afterwards I needed to stop for two months due to a bike accident. This year (2019) I started training in January. Since then I skated two marathons. My next step will be the Italian championship in downhill. This will be a new challenge the 15th of April.”

List of achievements

• 5x World Champion
• 8x silver medallist at World Championship
• 5x bronze medallist at World Championship
• 15x European Champion
• 13x silver medallist at European Championship
• 10x bronze medallist European Championship
• 32x Italian Champion 

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