NICOLE DELLA MONICA and MATTEO GUARISE
THOUGH ITALY HAS a long tradition with World and European champions in the singles and ice dance disciplines, its pairs program has always been in the shadows.
But last season, Nicole Della Monica and Matteo Guarise brought the discipline into the limelight in their homeland, and wrote their own piece of skating history when they became the first Italian pairs team to ever qualify for a Grand Prix Final.
When Stefania Berton and Ondřej Hotárek claimed bronze at 2013 Europeans, it marked the first Championship medal ever won by an Italian pairs team in the nation’s skating history.
Nicole Della Monica and Matteo Guarise took that success a step further last season.
At the 2018 Grand Prix event in Helsinki, the duo claimed the lead in the short program for the first time in their career. They ultimately finished second to Russia’s Natalia Zabiiako and Alexander Enbert. At Rostelecom Cup, their second Grand Prix competition, Della Monica and Guarise again wound up in second place — this time behind the Russian team of Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov — and qualified for the Final in Vancouver, where they finished fifth.
The Italian duo missed the third step of the podium at the 2019 European Championships
