All champions were once children, they all started somewhere and it was fun to meet the Olympic and Paralympic champions of the Fiamme Oro and Team Allianz together at the event A dream called Paris 2024, and answer the questions asked by the little ones: also because you discover debuts at the antipodes: Antonio Fantin, Paralympic champion in Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, admits: «I was really thrown into the water, for rehabilitation, and there are moments in life when you have to enjoy things a little, because you can never know how many opportunities you will burn in life if you don’t resist a little longer. Here we celebrate moments, the moment in which we reach the goal which as they said is a jwe do not progress, it is normal for challenges to be scary, the tension of a race at the highest level, entering an operating room, but if we want to advance in life we have to face them».
Sofia Raffaeli, 20 years old, who started with artistic dance at 3 before discovering rhythmic dance as a never-ending passionin Paris she won a bronze: «There were many expectations, after four years in which I had won a lot, I could have done more: in the final I made some mistakes, but I managed to enjoy the competition and share it with Milena Baldassari (who came in tenth, ed.), and I am still happy to have partly realized my dream: ten months after the Olympics I had to change coach, after 12 years. In gymnastics this usually doesn’t happen. This difficult experience taught me that obstacles exist, but that even bad times can teach you things about yourself that you didn’t know and extraordinary results can arise, such as the relationship with Claudia Mancinelli, my current coach. I was lucky to meet her».
At the opposite pole to Fantin, who was chosen by swimming, there is Thomas Ceccon who started with tennis and was even good at it but when he discovered swimming he cultivated an exclusive, almost extreme love for water. When the child asks him why they bite medals and if gold has a different taste than other metals, after explaining that it is an ancient custom that refers to the time when gold coins were tested with the teeth to make sure they were not fake, he says: «Yes, gold has a different taste, once I said that for me whoever comes in second is the first of the losers, and I kind of screwed myself because I came in second in Tokyo. I wanted the gold in Paris so much that when I won it I felt my conscience was clear, almost as if a weight had been lifted from my body.” Unlike the others, he doesn’t have the medal with him: “I didn’t bring it, because I’m afraid to carry it around, it happened to others that they stole it. When I was a kid I liked to post, to be silly on social media, but now I’m 23, I’ve grown up and I’ve learned that you have to be careful. Being known, winning, it’s all beautiful, but I’m still the same guy, I don’t want to change and if I have to tell the truth my dream is to live on a desert island with a pool and just swim”.
Giorgia Villa says she started artistic gymnastics at 3 years old: «My mother took me there, she told me to let it all out here, because you are really too lively and you break everything at home»but then it was her grandmother who made the dream possible, who took charge of accompanying her between races and training sessions and who made the video stand out thanks to the story of the series “Dreaming of Paris 2024: 7 athletes, one goal”, the seven athletes of the Allianz Team, who invested a billion euros in the Olympic movement, obviously on a global level, not just Italian, but achieved a flattering success with the Italians: the magnificent seven Italians, all things considered, won so many medals that they could compete with more than one nation in the general Olympic and Paralympic medal table: “My grandmother couldn’t accompany me to Paris,” says Giorgia Villa, one of the “fairies” who made history with the silver medal in the national artistic gymnastics team, “but she was the first one I heard from after the competition, she started crying, so emotional. However, I have always felt his presence very close, even from home.”
Whoever accompanies from near or far is anything but a sideshow, for Giulia Ghiretti, Paralympic gold in the 100m breaststroke, there were 80 people in the stands, including relatives, friends and supporters: «They left by bus from Parma, they wanted to see Paris and when they asked me which race I suggested they follow I said the 100m breaststroke, finding them there just off the podium after the awards ceremony made the moment unforgettable.”
Alice Volpi, Olympic silver medalist in the team foil, and fourth in the individual, had Daniele Garozzo, her life partner, cheering her on, but he was stopped three months before the games by a health problem that did not prevent him from competing: «For the first time we did not share the eventwith both of us participating, it was a bolt from the blue, luckily he is a doctor and has other things in life, having him there shouting his head off supported me a lot, even if when he told me: “do it for both of us”, I told him: “Please, that way you put too much pressure on me”».
And a hug at the end is what changes the taste of a bitter disappointment: “Going out in the first round”, he says connected remotely Aziz Abbes Mouhiidine, boxer, heavyweightI, who started with legitimate ambitions, «While I was expecting to win that gold and I couldn’t wait to get into the ring, it was tough. I immediately noticed something was wrongI reacted from the second round, until I convinced the audience and also my opponent, but not the judges: Paris 2024 was a terrible Olympics for my feelings, I was so angry, but my mother was there and she was the first person I saw. He hugged me tightly and said: “Don’t think about anyone, we will conquer Olympus as Dad wanted. I didn’t win medals but I won because I understood that I have a lot to prove: we will share other dreams”.