The Queen of the Games. Indeed, no: the queen of the Italian Games. Or better still: Italy is the queen of the Games thanks to the queen of sports. All clear, dazzling, dazzling. The blue athletics is reborn and exalted on the largest stage, the one with five circles, and paints masterpieces in series – as never happened before – on the track of the Tokyo Olympic stadium (and in Sapporo, no less torrid venue of the competition capital march and marathon in this Olympics scarred by the pandemic and bent by the hot and humid Japanese summer). So it is not a trivial exercise to first summarize the numbers, then ask ourselves the why and how of these extraordinary triumphs, which have left the world and ourselves Italians speechless.
Five golds
Record booty, that of Italian athletics in Tokyo. The previous record was held by the three of Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, editions marked by the two boycotts. Five triumphs in a few days, one more than those obtained in the previous eight Olympics combined in this sport. Yes, because from Seoul 1988 to Rio 2016 only Gelindo Bordin (marathon in South Korea), Ivano Brugnetti (20 km walk, Athens 2004), Stefano Baldini (marathon, also in Greece) and Alex Schwazer (50 km walk in Beijing 2008) ) had triumphed. In general, we had only won five medals at once in Berlin 1936, London 1948 and Los Angeles 1984 (in all three editions there were 7).
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Men and women
In the men’s field, the four Tokyo successes are unprecedented. The record was two, obtained in Antwerp 1920, Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984 and Athens 2004. Antonella Palmisano, on the other hand, is just the fourth Italian woman to win an Olympic gold medal and breaks a 37-year long fast. The others? Ondina Valla (80 hurdles, Berlin 1936), Sara Simeoni (high jump, Moscow 1980), Gabriella Dorio (1500, Los Angeles 1984). In the women’s field this is the first success in the march. The victory of the 30-year-old from Puglia is number 10 for Italy, in the specialty: from Ugo Frigerio (double in Antwerp 1920 between 3 km and 10 km), to Massimo Stano, Olympic hero twenty-four hours before Palmisano. From certainty walking to the historic first time in the 100 meters. The only one to have succeeded was Giuseppina Leoni, bronze in Rome 1960. In the men’s field, however, no one had ever even reached the final in the queen race.
Word to the expert
But how did we manage to build this Italian miracle in Japan? “The reasons are different and complementary – explains Giorgio Rondelli, for more than half a century in the world of Italian and international athletics, coach of champions such as Alberto Cova and Francesco Panetta -: already with the advent of the presidency of Alfio Giomi (whose made a few months before the Games the new president took over, the former other great middle distance runner Stefano Mei, ed) a technical decentralization was started which for some years did not actually give immediate results, although helping the athletes to move at technicians of absolute value, such as Patrizio Parcesepe, coach of the new Olympic walking champions Stano and Palmisano, but also favoring the creation of “family” work groups, with technical-parents as in the case of Filippo Tortu and the middle-distance runner Battocletti. In Trento, for example, there is a middle distance group where there is Crippa and others. Jacobs had gone to Camossi for the long, then opted for speed. These individuals and these groups then organized themselves by creating autonomous staff with doctors, physiotherapists, even psychologists to optimize the search for results ».
Point of connection
“It is also important – continues Rondelli – the role of connection and catalyst played by the technical director Antonio La Torre, from Puglia (it is a happy destiny, in these Olympics, that many blue joys come from the Tavoliere and surroundings!) Of Manfredonia, born in 1956, which comes from the march where he was the coach of the 2004 Athens Olympic champion Ivano Brugnetti. The Tower is at the same time equidistant and “equivocal” – underlines Rondelli wisely – to the various working groups, without direct links with anyone in particular, but with careful coordination and supervision ».