31 March 2026
“It’s going to be the most amazing experience for me.”: Stefano Spiller relishing the LGT World Men’s opportunity
When it comes to your favourite music or sports star, the saying is well-known… “never meet your idols”.
It’s one way to avoid crushing disappointment, so imagine how Stefano Spiller is feeling right now. The twenty-year-old has been drafted into the LGT World Men’s Championship to skip Italy’s top men’s team — normally led by the highly-experienced Joel Retornaz — and the first thing he says about his new team is: “They are my idols from when I started curling, so I’m very happy for them to be my team-mates.”
Not that Stefano isn’t qualified for the job. He led his own team to World Junior gold in Cortina last season, then followed that up with a silver at this year’s World Juniors in Taarnby, Denmark.
If that’s not enough, along with partner Lucrezia Grande, he is the reigning World Junior Mixed Doubles champion, having won at last year’s inaugural event in Edmonton, Canada. He was also alternate for Italy at the 2025 Winter World University Games.
Now, he not only finds himself rubbing shoulders with his idols, but calling the shots for them, too… literally!
So how does he feel about how things have turned out? “This is an amazing experience for me. My own team is very good, but these guys are incredible players and incredible sweepers.”
They also seem to be incredible team-mates too. As skip, Stefano has to handle media interview duties and his new team-mates have not been above making faces at him and putting him off in a light-hearted way as he speaks to the camera and microphones.
Long-time Italy skip Joel Retornaz decided not to compete in this event, and that’s when things had to change.
“I first learned I was going to be in this event a month ago” Stefano said, “It’s all quite incredible. It’s going to be the most amazing experience for me.” And with a couple of early wins under their belt, Stefano’s experience-building campaign looks like being a success.
Like everyone else involved in Italian curling, Stefano is enjoying the new exposure and popularity that curling has gained in the aftermath of the Milano Cortina Olympic Winter Games.
As he explains, “Cortina and the Olympics have made quite a difference at home. Before, if you said you were a curler, everyone would ask ‘what is that’? Now, if you say that, everyone knows, and it’s quite respected.”
Now it’s Stefano’s turn to add his own stories of Italian curling success and it’s an opportunity he’s relishing.
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