Paola Egonu in Sanremo 2023, who is the co-host of the third evening of the Festival – breaking latest news

You say Paola Egonu, say one of the strongest volleyball players in the world. But also much more. why there is not only volleyball in the life of the 24-year-old born in Cittadella (in the province of Padua) of Nigerian parents and grew up as fast as she could. She, who as a child saw herself as a nun like her aunt and who suddenly found herself a champion. At 12 she didn’t like volleyball, including her classmates that she didn’t know about her and someone always telling her what to do. At 15, the promise of Club Italia, at 18, a gem from Novara who builds a team around her (and veteran Francesca Piccinini) to win in Italy and in Europe, at 20, a diamond from Conegliano which dominates the international scene, at 23, a star among the stars of Vakifbank Istanbul. Without forgetting the blue, of which already past, present and future (hopefully, but that’s another chapter).

She who likes to call herself Afro-Italian, strong and pragmatic when it comes to attacking 40, 50, 60 balls and carrying the team on her shoulders, fragile when she fails and ends up in the dock. She, a girl with all the contradictions of someone who has lived a life on a roller coaster and the weight of responsibility of someone who is forced to send a message. She, sexually fluid, or rather free, as she loudly claimsand proud spokesperson for those who still feel discriminated against.

There is all this, but also much more in Paola Egonu who tonight joins Amadeus on the stage of the Ariston in Sanremo. At today’s press conference you said in no uncertain terms that racist Italy, even if it is improving. And to those who asked her if in her monologue she would also speak of racism – as feared by Minister Salvini – she replied as follows: I will tell myself, therefore I will also address this issue.

From the monologue, he explained, I would like a small part of me to come out, the most emotional, the most hidden. Emotional like Paola who, after the final for the bronze medal of the last world championship, shook the world of volleyball with a tearful farewell to the national team after some racist messages received on social media. a decision that I have not yet made – she clarified in recent days -. I don’t want to give uncertain answers, I’m trying to digest everything that happened. And this morning you added: If there were to be the possibility, I would go back to the national team. For now, if on the one hand the president of Federvolley Giuseppe Manfredi is confident of having the best Egonu back for the European Championship (which is also played at home and will open at the Arena di Verona on August 15th) and the Olympic qualification, on the other technical commissioner David Mazzanti postpone any speech summons: It will be a knot that we will untie later. We agree not to talk about it. Everything that comes out will be known in May. The coach with whom the opposite seems to have had some friction at the World Cup, however, immediately offers the blue’s praise: Paola has many talents and knows how to manage many stages in an authentic way. Say things very sharply, like her .

As he did on his first television appearance at One, in October 2021, when he recounted the difficulty of having to wake up every day and take on a whole series of responsibilities, not necessarily related to volleyball: The pressure can crush you – he said in that monologue – obviously this is part of the game: transform defense into attack . I like this. What I don’t like are the labels people stick on me. Who prefers to judge me for who I love, for the color of my skin, for my passport. If you really want to judge me, do it with the only label that belongs to me: free. Like the protagonists of the animated film Soul (Pixar and Disney) to which he lends his voice in 2020. Free to love a woman, as she told Courier in 2018 (at the time she was engaged to Polish colleague Kasia Skorupa), or a man, as in the last story
— finished a few months ago — with another Polish colleague, the spiker Michal Filip. Even the parents accepted: When you feel different you tend to hide, but my father understood.

A diversity that Egonu discovered at the age of 4, when he experienced the first discriminations in kindergarten, told in recent days in an interview with Vanity Fair: If I ever have a black-skinned child – he explains – he will experience all the disgust that I experienced. If he’s of mixed skin, even worse: they’ll make him feel too black for whites and too white for blacks. Is it worth it, therefore, to give birth to a child and condemn him to unhappiness?.

Now Paola wears the Vakifbank Istanbul shirt, one of the richest clubs in the world, but the future is still nebulous. His contract expires at the end of this season and the club he has until March 31st to exercise his renewal option. Some specialized Turkish sites are sure that it won’t
to sign Paola’s great rival, Tijana Boskovic, world champion with Serbia who frees herself at the end of the season from Eczacibasi, the other formation from Istanbul which sails at the top of the championship standings. And that Vakif will face the day after tomorrow afternoon, with an Egonu who has just returned from Sanremo. There are those who claim it’s all a move by the club (which would not have jumped for joy for this social evening) for encourage her to make that qualitative leap that is expected of a player of her caliber and drag the team towards the successes she is used to. And who, on the other hand, is sure that his future will always be in Istanbul (Eczacibasi bank) or even back in Italy (with Milan and Scandicci who are already testing the ground).

Paola Egonu, on the other hand, has always looked more to today than to tomorrow. In sport, as in life: The idea of ​​great love doesn’t drive me crazy: I’m interested in what I need at a certain stage of my life, it doesn’t necessarily have to be forever. she grew up like this, with her parents leaving early for Manchester and she traveling around Italy and the world having to prove that she is the strongest, between records and a few falls. From the Olympic flag proudly carried at the inaugural ceremony in Tokyo
to tears from the five-circle disappointment, from the exaltation for the European Championship won a few weeks later to the desperation for a failed World Cup one step away from the final
. When the vulgar messages received on her social networks brought to her mind the bad things rained down from the stands of a gymnasium at the time of the youth by parents of other girls who insulted her for the color of her skin.

An essential resource in the blue locker room, but also a champion to manage. A pure talent that must be handled with care. All the coaches he has worked with know this, all the teammates with whom he has shared a piece of the journey. But Paola Egonu is no longer just a volleyball player. And tonight I will try to tell the person behind the character.