The athlete from Cordignano takes stock of the post-Olympics and does not rule out retirement “It was all fantastic: now I will decide whether to go on”
cordignano
No need to bother Pierre de Coubertin to remember, regardless of the result, how important it is to participate in an Olympics. Just ask Alexandra Agiurgiuculese, who at the age of 20 gave herself her first five-circle experience in the individual rhythm. He missed the access to the final in spite of his partner Milena Baldassarri, finishing 15th.
But she knows she has realized the dream of when she was a child in Romania and at six she began to dabble in a small gym in Iasi with ribbon or clubs. And she feels so happy, almost fulfilled, that she even meditates on retreat. No decision was made, but the words after the race, which contain the hard sacrifices of recent years, are eloquent: «A fantastic, special race. And it was beautiful: opponents, environment, everything. It didn’t go as I hoped, but I’m satisfied. The future? I have to think, I want to relax. And then, with a cool head, I’ll decide whether to go on. There is always a World Cup in Japan, I know, but Italy also has another gymnast, Sofia Raffaeli, who deserves space and chance. With Baldassarri they are an exceptional couple. We are very good friends, all three of us. So, for both of them, I would gladly take a step to the side ».
Reflections that bring to mind the complicated approach to the Games of the gymnast originally from Iasi, who divides her life between Cordignano (where her family lives) and Udine (she trains at Asu with Spela Dragas). Alex, capable of hitting the pass already at the 2019 World Cup, has suffered in recent months from Raffaeli’s break-in, so much so that the certainty of the trip to Tokyo (the Olympic cards are not nominal) he had it only after the Tricolori of the beginning July. An internal competitiveness that was accompanied by the difficult pursuit of the condition by Agiurgiuculese, who had taken over Covid at the beginning of the year. But what matters is having reached Japan. Net of the nuanced final. Excluding rim and ribbon errors. “Last season, during the lockdown and after the postponement of the Games, I got down a lot,” she says. “It took me months to get up. Thanks to the Federation for the spectacular opportunity. Thanks to family and arrears ».
Alex is linked to Alessandro Stella, a fencer from Friuli: as often happens, high-level sportsmen understand each other. But now we need to look back. Alex has been in Italy for 10 years and remembers well the genesis of the Olympic dream: “I started with rhythmic in 2007, so the first Olympics watched on TV was Beijing”, he explained in an interview, “But it was with London 2012 that I really understood where I might go someday. I became a fan of Kanaeva and Kabaeva: “Mom, I want to get there too”, I repeated endlessly. And she reassured me: “If you train well, you will succeed too”. There is an anecdote related to an old Motorola from my mother: I had recorded a vocal in which I said “I’ll go to the Olympics, I’ll beat the Russians”. I don’t know how many times family and friends have heard it: they know it by heart ». Now, returning to Cordignano, maybe he will listen to it again with his father Richard and his mother Cristina, his sister Madalina and his brother Sebastian. Telling how dreams can turn into reality. –
Mattia Toffoletto