Overwhelms the house of Italy in Tokyo, the two low plants of the Takanagawa Prince Hotel, for its elegance, with all the staff dressed in Emporio Armani, for its amenities, with long menu of Rigatoni and Ossobuco, and by its own existence, as many
Countries – as Spain – dispensed with this type of centers in the Games.
Italy came to win, it came to succeed and it shows.
Today, back home, they are celebrating 40 medals -10 golds, 10 plates and 20 bronces-, their historic record above 36 they got in Los Angeles 32 and in Rome 1960. It is not necessary to remember that they are more than double
That Spain hung up, just come to talk to them and ask: Where is the trick?
“It is a mix of a long tradition in several sports and an ambitious project that we have been carrying out recent years. In the 2016 Rio Games we ended up with 28 medals, the same we had achieved in London 2012 and almost the same as
In Beijing 2008. We accept that we were stagnated in our elite sport and start a program that is based on strengthening our three high performance centers, one to the north of the country, one in Rome and the other to the south, through the method
scientist and that the English call Marginal Gains, “explains the world Carlo Mornati, head of the Italian team in Tokyo and Olympic Subcampeon in Sydney 2000. While he speaks, classical music and the RAI narrations that, in
The big screens on the floor below, continue to repeat the successes harvested in recent days.
Five golds in athletics and one at rowing, cycling, taekwondo, sailing and karate without needing to descend in the medal, where they find podiums also in fencing, swimming, olympic shot, archery, gymnastics, canoeing, judo, halterophilia, boxing
and fight
United Kingdom or Netherlands ended up ahead of Italy at the Medaletero, but they do not have as much variety in their achievements.
“We did not want to follow the model that marked the United Kingdom in London 2012 because our sport was already very rich in disciplines, our idea was always to offer more means to everyone so that they take advantage of the best,” says Mornati, who points out that the
Failure of his teams, without semifinalists for the first time from Mexico 1968, is due to that: “The players are with their clubs, some abroad, and it is much harder to work with them in the medium and long term”.
“The results of Italy are very good, but under my point of view they are improveable, there are disciplines in which we have a lot of tradition and in which we could have won more. In fencing, in swimming or in canoeing we have not achieved any gold,
Note that there are countries that have advanced us, “analyzes Massimiliano Rosolino, the best swimmer in the history of Italy, with four medals between Sidney 2000 and Athens 2004.
Commentator for Eurosport In these games, assumes certain reviews and avoid comparisons with Spain.
“You like team sports very much, or you all win or do not win anyone,” he says.
“Talking to colleagues from other countries, I think, in some way, the pandemic has benefited us, our Olympians had a few weeks of a break, but then a plan was approved by which they could train despite the confinement and I think it has been noted
In some disciplines, as in athletics, “says Rosolino, hosted at the nearby Shinagawa Prince Hotel where he runs every day for parking to dodge the eternal quarantine imposed by Japan to journalists.
Rosolino was and is Carabiniere and is not an anecdote in his country, as is the case of Saul Craviotto, Agent of the National Police: the former swimmer belongs to the Italian security forces as 75% of the country’s Olympians.
The Ministry of Defense is economically supported by elite sport in Italy, allows most classifieds to be 100% professionals and, in addition, it offers them a future: when they are withdrawn they can continue working.
“For us it is very important precisely because of that, not only athletes can focus on training, something that also happens in other countries through scholarships, they also have a job at ending their sports lives,” says Mornati, also agent,
that does not hide the data.
Of the 384 Italians in Tokyo, 269 belong to some body between military, national police, customs agents and penitentiary guards.
It is the sustenance of a delegation that closed their stay in Japan thinking of the very close winter games of Beijing 2022, where they will also try to overcome their record: the 20 medals of the Lillehammer 1994 games. Marcell’s surprise
Jacobs at 100 meters, Luigi Busà’s kick in the Karate, the Vanesa Ferrari show in his land exercise, the embrace of Gianmarco Tambberi with Mutaz Barshim by sharing gold in the height jump, the victory of his mixed nation in
The sail, the vertigo of Filippo Ganna and the cycling team on track in the persecution, the emotion of the swimmer Gregorio Paltrinieri in the pool and in the open waters and thus medals and more medals and more medals.
