Roma 2009 FINA Championship - part 1
As all of you knows,
I'm such a loser about water sports. I always watch and follow italian athletes and I'm so sad not to be able to go to Rome for seeing my favourites, since I was 10 years old.
Today the first part of the Championship is finishes. I like swimming in pool, but surely I prefer diving, swimming in open water and
swimming in synch. I'm so so happy, after the first days in which Italians seems to be able only to win wood medals, to take such an hystorical medals...let's see!
Tania Cagnotto - my favourite one since I was 12 years old. It's such a strong feeling to see this girl, only 1 year older than me, to become a famous and strong athlet, after years in which I always followed her and went crazy for her mistakes as young athlet. Yeah, Chinese divers as Guo Jinjing are invincible, now, but nothing is eternal and Tania is still growing. Probabily she could win more, but she felt under an enormous tensions. Anyway, with Francesca Dellapè she won our first silver medal in synch, with only 18 points of distance from China.
Listening Tania's curious voice, seeing her pure eyes, still finding a simple girl even after big results...I'm so proud of her as fan.
BRONZE in 3M diving board
SILVER in synch 3M diving board
Beatrice Adelizzi - This is at now the most suffered and desidered medal, the one we were waiting from years. In synch, as in gymnastics, the judging is quite compromised by some partialities. In both case Russia always reign among the others, but sometimes it's not athlets' worth. In synch, the ranking cheanges rarely and Italy is litteraly fighting for not arriving behind Canada, speaking about team results. About solo and couple, we have this young, powerful and so technical girl. Beatrice is quite shy, but, in water, is able to express feelings and do technical passages not like the most famous one, Gemma Mengual, but like a real princess. Our first medal in synch, and now we want (and deserve) more.
BRONZE single in free programme synch
Valentina Grimaldi - Such a strong girl! She won an important bronze in a really fast competition and after that she helps her friend to take another medal, even if a jellyfish bite her and in the final part she return to Rome on ambulance. She is a pure athlet of a really hard sport, because in open water is really simple to lost the way, water can be really cold or hot, waves are enemies. And, can we only imagine what means swimming under the sun for 5, 10 and 25 km?
BRONZE 5km open water
Federica Vitale - with the help of her friend, even if at 22th km she said to trainer she was exhausted, she took all remained strenght and fight until the last meter for taking a good place. More than 4 hours in water, continue to swim. Incredible.
BRONZE 25km open water
Valerio Cleri - a monster. He lost a medal in a suspicious passage with an american in 10 km competion and today he won the gold medal with an abyss between him and the rest of the athlets. He exited from the sea and during the interview he don't smile. He is not showing his emotions, he is surely cold, but it's clear he felt this medal as his own, and he took it with a cold calculation of competion rhythm and distance's planning. Fantastic performance. I hope he is feeling the whole meaning of his result in the inner part of his heart.
GOLD 25km open water
Italian team has lot of supporters, of course, at Roma Championship. It's fantastic for them, but I'm so sad that people are discovering these incredible sports only now. I'm following the competitions from years, on national tv. We must discover that football is not the only sport in this world and these young persons and their trainers made lots of sacrifices to arrive to these results, because money&fame are always absent for them. Our athlets train themself in old buildings, only 4/5 hours a day, not because they are lazy, but because they are too much for training in a single structure.
But everytime they arrive to an important result, no one helps them.
It's inglorious, for Italy and italians.