The Italian Ski Federation FISI has honoured their athletes of the year and for the first time, a Nordic Combined athlete has been chosen.

Alessandro Pittin rewrote the history of the discipline in Italy, being the first Italian athlete who won a medal at the Olympics (bronze at Vancouver 2010) and took a triple win on one World Cup weekend (Chaux-Neuve in 2012).

Fighting his way back to the world elite after being plagued by back to back injuries, Pittin returned to the podiums in a big way in the past winter: the resident of Cervicento won the silver medal at the World Championships in Falun 2015 (another first for an Italian athlete) and has a total of 12 World Cup podiums to his name.

He now succeeds Armin Zöggeler as FISI Athlete of the Year and beat out other top athletes like cross-country skiers Federico Pellegrino and Dietmar Nöckler, alpine skier Dominik Paris, the female biathlon relay team who won bronze in Kontiolahti, snowboarders Luca Matteotti and Roland Fischnaller and other successful Italian winter sports athletes.