Lila Lapanja at Lake Tahoe, where she lives. In the future, however, she will start for her father's country.

In the future for Slovenia: Slalom specialist changes nation

Lila Lapanja has not yet made a big appearance in the Ski World Cup. The slalom specialist hopes that she can change that by changing nations.

08 Maj 2024

From: cst

Lapanja has achieved World Cup points four times in her skiing career. Most recently in January 4 in Jasna (Slovakia). The American wants to do this more often in the future, but no longer in the service of her home country. Instead, Lapanja wants to drive for Slovenia.

This is made possible by her Slovenian passport, which she has due to her father's origins. Vojko Lapanja was also a ski racer. His daughter made her World Cup debut in November 2015. Because there were no major successes, Lapanja competed almost exclusively in the North American Cup in the following years, where she won the slalom classification in 2020 and 2022.

Now the 29-year-old wants to start a new chapter and work for her father's home country in the future. The documents have already arrived at the international ski association FIS, all that is missing is the official confirmation from SloSki. In any case, the conditions for Lapanja to survive in Europe are not bad: in addition to English, she also speaks Slovenian and even German fluently.