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Just because you live in the mountain village of Sexten and have the impressive mountain scenery right outside your door, it still does not make you a mountain person. Someone with the mountains in their blood. Who knows and loves them. Their beautiful side, but also their difficult, rough and challenging nature. Without question Elisabeth “Lee” Egarter belongs in the mountains. Her favourite place: outside and high up. The pleasant 40-year-old is not only a ski instructor and successful trainer, but also a hiking guide and winner of the Transalpine Run. Sport is her life. That’s why you’ll find her on the slopes every day in winter, where she teaches children and adults perfect gliding on skis and trains the ski-kids of the Sexten Drei Zinnen Sports Club. Lee’s talent factory has even produced a few up-and-coming ski stars: Vera Tschurtschenthaler has made it onto the Italian national team, and Moritz Happacher the freestyle squad. Jannik Sinner, currently Italy’s greatest young tennis hopeful, was, until the age of 12, also part of Lee’s ski racing crew and was twice runner up in the Italian championships. Elisabeth Egarter’s own skiing career started with the title of Italian champion at the tender age of ten. This was followed by victories in other disciplines, for example the hardest trail running stage race that there is, which she contested with another Sexten native, Martina Pfeifhofer. But anyone who thinks that when the slopes close Lee is in for a quiet time would be wrong. In summer the mountain chamois is out and about almost every day in the Sexten Dolomites as a hiking guide. On foot for her job, and now and again in her free time by mountain bike. Yes, this is how the mountain blood shows itself.