“Let’s think of an expression that, in the Italian language, is commonly used to encourage athletes during the races: the spectators shout:” Come on! “. Maybe we don’t notice, but it’s a beautiful imperative: It is the imperative of the verb “to give”. And this can make us think: it is not just a matter of giving a physical performance, perhaps extraordinary, but of giving yourself, of “playing”. It is a question of giving oneself for others – for their growth, for supporters, for loved ones, for coaches, for collaborators, for the public, even for the opponents – and, if you are truly sportythis is worth beyond the result ».
These are words spoken by Leone XIV in the homily of the Mass for the Jubilee of the sportsmen, not for nothing welcomed on the square with enthusiast of the stadium. Rarely even professionals of profession have made the profound meaning of competitive sport so effectivelyan activity that can be perceived, on the side of the world that does not become passionate about the sporting fact and its events, as an attempt, at the limit even a little futile, of self -referential affirmation of self, through a merely physical performance.
But no – the Pope says it well, not surprisingly a sports pope -, competitive sport is never a mere physical performance, on the contrary: the higher the mail, the higher the level of the competition, the more this aspect is evident. When the competition moves to the competition At the top of the world, the technical data and the physical data almost overlap, the distance between one and the other can be minimal, nothing, even inverse: think of Sinner’s 193 points and Alcaraz in 192, served at the second to win the Paris 2025 final, after 5 hours and 29 of the game resolved with one point in less than the defeated opponent. What comes into play, in a decisive way, is, however, precisely that “giving” of which Leone XIV speaks, firsthand: competing at certain levels, and succeeding, is to give a fund to the resources of the human. One putting everything at stake: psychological resources, the fear of failing, the ability to resist and also to suffer physically -we tend to remove the fact that at the limit the fatigue becomes physical pain -, to hold up to the pressure of the points that count, to ask the body with the strength of the body the resources that the body has finished. It is under pressure, as Dino Zoff often recalls, that the field reveals the personhis loyalty, his correctness, or the opposite: “The field”, he often repeats the captain of Italy 1982 world champion, “he pulls you out as you really are, because it takes away the filters of good education”.
There is a moment, in sport, in which, in that here and now, when the moment comes when two singles or two teams play the challenge to who is the best in the world at that moment, in which each puts everything about himself: it may happen that both give the best resources to the best and that the case of the Sinner-Alcaraz final decide is a detail. But it may also happen that only one of the two manages to mentally hold the stakes or squeeze resources that he did not know he had. This explains overpretations, in which Davide defeats Goliath against any prediction: The Leicester led by Claudio Ranieri who wins the 2016 English championship, rowing Chelsea, Machester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, not only stronger and famous, but also economically much more equipped. And counterparestations in which the designated champion sfarrine on the most beautiful: think of the Us Open of Tennis 2021, in which Novak Djokovic faced the most important of his appointments with history, the opportunity to enter among the very few capable of winning in one year: Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Us Open, without really being able to play it, losing with 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 from Daniil Medvedev: Winning of the professional era let herself defeat, in an important game, without ever entering it.
None of these extraordinary performances, for better or for worse, is explained only with a physical fact. But with what everyone has at that moment within himself, with the metaphorical mirror with which we confront each other in the round beyond the bodies. You are passionate or not, it is undeniable that in what happens in a high -level race field there are a sociological and human factor that deserve to be investigated, also for their involvement capacity. If it is true that a part of the world does not see in a football match that “twenty -two men in underpants that recur a ball” (Futbol, Edoardo Galeano), another part lets it passionate about it to lose sleep and sometimes the measure.
In this sense, sport is also a very powerful educational tool, not only because without a rule you cannot play, nor compete, but because what is measured on a competition field at all levels is, to put it again with Leo XIV is: “The man in comparison, in the art of defeat, with one of the deepest truths of his condition: fragility, the limit, imperfection. This is important, because it is from the experience of this fragility that we open to hope. The athlete who never makes mistakes, who never loses, does not exist. The champions are not infallible machines, but men and women who, even when they fall, find the courage to get up ». It is there that sport ceases to be a symbol and kneads with life, for this reason whoever looks at, even if perhaps he has the pressure of the thumb on the remote control as its maximum athletic performance, is identified there.
