As they used to say in the 70s: “You don't need a serial number, I'm Hutch and he is Starsky”.
Just as, today, there is no need for a surname, for all of us they are: Federica, Aldo, Lucilla, Gregorio, Marcell, Gianmarco, Vanessa and all the other athletes who compete in this anomalous Olympics, in that of the Rising Sun. We are their fans, we empathize, we rejoice and suffer when they are in the race, as if we were there.
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Getting to an Olympics is in itself a journey made up of a thousand sacrifices, hours and hours of daily training. Often they are very young who deprive themselves of the sociability common to their peers: school and field, field and school. First of all athletes: normal, champions, champions; in their dressing room they are all equal and like in the best fairy tales: “One for all, all for one”. After all, the medal is only a detail because what matters is the “journey” not the destination. Or so Kerouac teaches us.
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It is true that an Olympics is almost never considered an “On the Road” path, rather it is experienced with the hysteria of the result and when this arrives, read the medal, you are often disappointed if it does not correspond to gold. Newspaper headlines, (little) sports comments, always ready to put the athletes on the cross if the performances do not match the desired narrative.
It is surprising that the President of Coni, Giovanni Malagò, joined the most vulgar press, speaking of an environment to be rebuilt, regarding fencing and of “great bitterness” for the elimination of the foil team in the quarterfinals. He is even more surprising that being an authentic sports man, he takes advantage of a gold medal and “throws it into politics”, invoking the sporting ius which is now a delicate matter and then concerns all boys, not just sportsmen.
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Press that allows itself titles such as: “Harakiri of women's team foil”, after the blue won the bronze, “The curse of Olympic gold - Italy collects silver and bronze but we struggle to get on the top step of the podio”, with great contempt for four years of work and sacrifices; up to the disgusting “Getting close only counts in bowls”. Press, the American one, which with the Washington Post has the vulgarity to put the shadow of doping on the Italian medals, forgetting that Ben Johnson, Melanie Griffith, not to mention the lousy Lance Armstrong, are their rubbish. Here you need the surnames!
Anomalous, it was said. An Olympics which, taking place one year late, due to the pandemic, sent many training tables in vain and consequently the whole calculation of biorhythms (physical, emotional, intellectual) that are the basis of modern sport. Never as in Tokyo has there been a psychic decline for so many athletes: from Pilato to Quadrella, from Fognini to Djokovic himself, to arrive at the shocking case of Simone Biles, already extensively analyzed.
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The human factor has betrayed the expectations of many but has restored dignity to many young people who are always and only asked to win. On the other hand, the most poignant nostalgia does not concern so much the lived past but rather what could have been and was not.
After this event, the Paralympics will begin on 24th August. Italy will appear in Japan with the highest number of athletes since participating in the Olympic Games: 113 blues engaged in 16 disciplines and with a clear majority of women. A historic result for the Chairman of the Committee, Luca Pancalli; authentic sportsman and refined manager to whom we owe, among other things, the victory of the football world championship in 2006, to which he worked even before becoming the extraordinary commissioner of the FIGC.
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There will be the two flag bearers: Bebe and Federico together with Veronica and Lorenzo, Katia and Andrea and many other young and old, but as always: first of all athletes!
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