Bubi Dennerlein, swimming champion and technical commissioner of the Italian swimming team for 24 years died in Rome in the morning. Dennerlein, who would have turned ninety next December, was the master of Novella Calligaris and generations of blue swimmers through seven Olympics played as head of the Italian team, starting from Rome 1970. Costantino Dennerlein, better known as Bubi, was the first absolute Italian swimming champion of the Canottieri Napoli, with which he won 10 titles and set 4 national records, he participated in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 and won 2 water polo championships, in 1957 (indoor) and in 1958.
Romanian mother and German father, he was born in Portici, in the province of Naples, Bubi devoted himself to swimming and water polo. As a coach, he was a great innovator. He introduced interval training to Italy and, applying the scientific method, the methods of modern biomechanics. His athletes won over 50 Italian titles: among them also his brother Fritz Dennerlein, water polo champion and excellent swimmer who finished fourth at the 1960 Rome Olympics in the 200 butterfly, won two European bronzes and also set five continental records between 100 and 200 butterfly. . But above all Novella Calligaris, three Olympic medals in Munich 1972 and the world gold medal with the world record in 800 in Belgrade 1973. In the same period, as coach of the men’s water polo team he won the 1963 championship, the third in the history of Canottieri Napoli , ahead of Pro Recco and Lazio in the standings.