The flying mother is now ours and the Dutch will deal with it. It is no longer a Dutch trademark, as it had been since London 1948 when the nickname for Fanny Blankers Koen was coined, an era in which motherhood and sport were almost irreconcilable worlds. Milan Cortina 2026 like Turin 2006: as in the Oval of the time in the Ice Skating arena in Rho the stands are orange, because the Dutch arrive fully equipped to cheer for their national sport. But there’s nothing to be done: the ice on the long track in Milan, as in Turin, is tinged with blue.
And there is a thread that unites that Olympics to today, because it is from there that Francesca Lollobrigida chose the ice, made hot here, in the 3 thousand, where no one expected her, not even her coach Maurizio Marchetto, who also knows Francesca’s competitive energy very well: «She went beyond expectations, she confides in the belly of the stadium, «after an uphill season», complicated by a virus that weakened her to the point of almost convincing her to stop. «I was powerless. But then everyone convinced me not to give up”, she says, summarizing the difficult moments, “even though yesterday I still told my husband that I was convinced I would skate for bronze”.
And in everyone there is a world: her family first of all, but also the Federation which supported her with the mum project, built for her to help her return, the Air Force and him, little Tommaso who grows up with the help of an entire family who by supporting her allows her mum to fly on the ice until she puts a wonderful gold medal around her neck Olympic and then run to meet him, hug him and tell the world all the satisfaction and pride of being there as a mother to demonstrate that one can realize oneself to the point of dominating the world and at the same time not give up on motherhood.
Francesca flies in the last kilometre, flies to the Olympic record, in a discipline where you often skate alone against the clock without referencesshe needs to engage in a two-person race with those who skate next to her, which she loves to do and which also brought the Canadian who skated with her to the bronze podium. Francesca flies and then opens her arms to welcome little Tommaso who is three years old and has been the ice mascot since he was born, much more than Tina and Milo (don’t worry) and who knows if he knows that that golden hug is the best birthday gift that can be given to a mother who cries and laughs on a day when everything glitters: the gold medal, the green nail polish, the blue eyes that shine like stars.
