Lorenzo Patta, 21, will be the first fractionist of the Italian relay “I started racing only four years ago, being here is a dream for me”
SASSARI. Nobody expected it. Sprinter Lorenzo Patta is the real surprise of the Olympics. Born in 2000, from Oristano, Lorenzo has a past as a footballer and a present and a future as a sprinter. In Tokyo he will be one of the fractional holders of the 4×100 relay. “I’m very happy, it will be a fantastic experience,” he says with dreamy eyes.
Patta, who grew up athletically at Atletica Oristano and is now part of the port group of the Fiamme Gialle, earned his participation in the Tokyo Olympics to the sound of results. In May, at the international meeting in Savona, he ran the 100 flat meters in 10 seconds and 13 hundredths, the seventh best Italian performance of all time preceded only by Jacobs (with the 9 “95 of the new Italian record set in the heats in Savona), Filippo Tortu (9 “99), Pietro Mennea (10” 01), Simone Collio (10 “06), Carlo Boccarini (10” 08), Jaques Riparelli (10 “11) and like Fabio Cerutti (10” 13 a Cagliari in 2008) and ahead of Stefano Tilli (10 “16 in August 1984).
His new technical caliber was then confirmed by the good participation both as an individualist (absent the Italian record holder Marcel Lamont Jacobs) and in the 4×100 relay at the European Team Championships held in the Slasky stadium in Chorzow (Poland) where he finished second in the test of 100. stopping the chronometers at 10.29 (-0.5), just one cent from the Frenchman Muhamadou Fall.
How are you preparing for the Olympics?
«I’m training in Oristano as if it were any other race. Participating in the Olympics is the dream of all athletes and having achieved it in such a short time, since I started practicing athletics for just over 4 years while I was playing football from an early age, is extraordinary. It is the realization of a dream that seemed distant and impossible. Instead it happened, suddenly. This year, after I made the 10 “13 in the 100 meters at the Savona meeting, things have changed considerably. In Tokyo I will run the relay but my next goal will be to participate in the individual competition of the Olympic review, perhaps in Paris “.
Have you tried the gearboxes yet?
«Yes and I will most likely run the first leg. I’ll be the first of the blue quartet starting from the blocks “
After the good performance in Poland in the European Cup he did not compete much. Any physical problems?
«Now I am very well, also thanks to the guidance of my coach Francesco Garau. In the European Cup races in Poland I got a distraction in the adductor which now seems completely recovered. I am ready for Tokyo. I will leave with the group on 28 July while others, including Filippo Tortu, will leave a few days earlier ».
Any regrets about leaving football?
“At first I was sorry. I played with Palma Monte Urpinu, in Excellence, football was my first passion. Then the athletics conquered me giving me fantastic and extraordinary emotions until the realization of the dream: to participate in the Olympics. All this is priceless, better than football athletics. ».