Ceccon – The Province of Pavia Pavia

the analysis

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On your knees, next to the block. Every race of Thomas Ceccon begins like this and he is not praying, he is not whispering sweet words to the water to be supported, he is putting himself in the most comfortable position to manage the energy and download the weight because he has a very long, out of average bust. The hallmark of that “Phelps” physique that makes him so inclined to water and so unstable outside.

Infinite trunk, narrow pelvis and shorter legs than one would expect from those 198 centimeters: designed for the swimming pool where, in fact, he almost immediately found the combination to crack the chronometers, “the handle” as his coach Alberto Burlina calls it and not just him. The handle behind which dozens of swimmers, even champions, have lost their time and sleep and which he hooked with the naturalness of a daily gesture, a hand under the pillow. Thanks to a vision that works like the negative in photography, while almost everyone tries to figure out how to accidentally move that hand to find the grip that makes you push the water back, he has always thought about how it stands still, an innate sensitivity: ” An ease that allows him to contract and relax with minimal effort, the economy of the gesture is his particularity and the reason why he succeeds in three different styles ». Dolphin, freestyle and backstroke where he reached world gold and the record.

Burlina has followed Ceccon since he was a child, aged 8 and up, even though until 11 it was his partner Anna Vallarsa who made him grow up and it is still she who “talks to him”. A fundamental occupation in this group that has become more and more compact to keep out any doubts and safeguard the project. So much so that, until now, the entourage has remained at a minimum, to avoid any draft.

Ceccon, immediately predestined and immediately surrounded by unsolicited advice. The hermetic team took sides to protect the desire not to be confined to one style. They did tests in every competition because age and precocity allowed it. At 14 he grows 13 cm in an amen and there is no longer a single parameter that goes back. He tidies himself up and continues to collect category records. At 18 he began to develop strength “without exaggerating because in the water the ability to transmit power in relation to one’s weight is a complicated equation”. And on to assemble and disassemble races, to reject the fear of others «this way it goes out of speed». But no, straight up to Tokyo where not only two medals arrived in the relay, but a result came out that confirmed the ambitions: 52 ”20, fourth place, 23 tenths from the best that was in circulation. Before him. A number to see, to touch, to exhibit as a shield «At first he didn’t even like the back».

And now, however, he is not surprised to swim him pushing him to the top, with a start that is still lacking and that yesterday, in the post-company tension drop, made him miss the start of the mixed relay: “My fault, I was competing as world champion and I should have presented myself differently. I’m sorry, maybe thirds we could have arrived. But without Federica we believed less, without her that extra magic is missing ». Now he has to put it there.

Now everything is possible and a little less dangerous because after the success, after the multiple tests inserted in this edition, which still lacks the 50 backstroke and an extraordinary mixed relay race for men, it is easier to focus on the future. Without intrusions of others. The ideal, ambitious Olympic program, all yet to be planned, would be to add both 200 meters to both backstroke and freestyle.

We are at the point where there are no more opponents from another category, not because Ceccon has to win, rather because he knows he is in that class of champions and has no inferiority complexes. Even if it still remains that body that responds to water and stumbles in life. As in words, which sometimes come out in languages ​​that he doesn’t even speak. That’s how it is done. Now he has started drawing to free his mind and find the handle even when he is dry. The sprinter Zazzeri, nicknamed Zazzart, taught him: «It helps me, I concentrate on that and the rest of the world disappears». The world in which, at times, he is strange because he lacks his element of him, water. –

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