This story is one for the ages.
Former Olympic skier Alice Varesco experienced an unforgettable surprise when she saw her dog make an unexpected appearance on national television, dashing down the final stretch of a Winter Olympic cross-country race, as reported by The Daily Mail.
Alice, now a 35-year-old trade marketer, and her husband, Enrico, reside close to the event venue in Italy. They believed their two-year-old Czechoslovakian Wolfdog, Nazgul, was securely confined in his kennel when they left to attend the women’s race on Wednesday morning.
They were in for a surprise.
Shortly after, Alice received a flood of messages from friends who had caught footage of Nazgul energetically sprinting across the finish line on live TV. The dog joyfully chased after skiers from Greece and Croatia, seizing his own moment in the Winter Olympic spotlight.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Varesco remarked. “We made sure the kennel door was shut, so I was baffled at how he managed to get out and onto the course.”
Although Nazgul was coaxed out of the way of the athletes, he slipped away again.
“I was so embarrassed,” she said. “When they told me he had escaped again after they caught him, I just thought, ‘Oh no, not again.’”
His antics made some viewers laugh, while others were unsure.
“I was like, ‘Am I hallucinating?” said Tena Hadzic, a 21-year-old Croatian skier who encountered the dog on her trip down the homestretch. “I don’t know what I should do, because maybe he could attack me, bite me.”
Greek skier Konstantina Charalampidou, who finished last, said, “It was funny. He made me forget about the race because it wasn’t good. Thanks to him, I’m famous now, so I have to thank him.”
The embarrassed owners said clever Nazgul — described as “stubborn but very sweet ” — must have figured out a way make a break for it and get in on the action.
“We apologized to the organizers,” Varesco said, “because we knew things could have gone wrong, but they were just relieved nothing serious happened.”
