Bet won by the support teacher from Alghero Livio Pomponi
PORTO TORRES. For Livio Pomponi «Asinara Stile Libero» is a winning bet. The 35-year-old former professional swimmer, former Italian junior champion, completed the swim around the Park Island within the 48 hours set as the maximum limit for a sporting enterprise designed to enhance “Sardinia as a choice of life and freedom”, as he explained.
The athlete from Alghero covered a distance of 42 kilometers in 13 hours and 49 minutes, 90,000 strokes to explain the “sore Sardinia” through his history: returning to the island after many years in Rome, he gave up on competitive every dream of glory to regain possession of an everyday life marked by the rhythms of nature and by contact with the environment and the sea, understood not as a border or cause of isolation but as an extension of one’s own vital space.
The former champion, now a support teacher in Olbia, dived from the Fornelli pier at 7.08 on Saturday 18 September. He swam for almost 5 hours and 19 kilometers, reaching Punta Cazzamala at 12.03. At 14.02 it left and at 16.35 it reached Punta dei Corvi, covering 25 kilometers in 7 hours and 28 minutes. On Sunday 19 September the swimmer dived back into Punta dei Corvi at 7.48 am and swam up to Punta Trabuccato, where at 9.30 he made a stop. At 10.30 off to the crossing in the open sea beyond Cala d’Oliva and Cala Reale. Driven by a great willpower, the prof with a degree in Architecture in the curriculum swam until 12.45, when he took a break off Cala Reale. At 13.40 the departure for Fornelli, where he arrived at 16.04.
Welcomed by the moved family members, celebrated by the tour operators, applauded and acclaimed by the many visitors of Asinara, Livio Pomponi came out of the water excited and happy. “I already have another bigger challenge in mind – he announced – but I will reveal it later”. (HANDLE).