Tokyo 2020, Paltrinieri silver 800 SL: “more than a miracle”

Gregorio Paltrinieri wins silver in the 800 freestyle at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Blue closes the final in second with an exceptional performance at 7’42” 11 behind American Robert Fink, gold at 7’41” 87, and is accepted by Ukraine’s Mihailo Romanchuk, bronze at 7’42”33. Paltrinieri, the protagonist with a disappointing battery, presents an amazing race that he leads from the start to the last metres. Only Finke’s race, which exploded in the final, negates that victory into the blue.

“To say that I made a miracle is little, I was a completely different person compared to the drums. One of my friends wrote to me that you can leave this final satisfied if you swim with your heart and not your head. So many muddled thoughts and ideas, today I put my heart into it. To race, with better strategy, but the heart I put in is too much,” the 26-year-old from Carby Mics Ray said.

Paltrinieri’s result is unusual if we take into account that the swimmer, while preparing for the games, had to deal with stopping due to mononucleosis. “In May I felt like a god, I didn’t think everything would be easy here, but I was convinced I was on the right track,” he said, rewinding the tape to the last European Championships. “Then I had to stop for a month, and the dreams collapsed. But I held on: I started from scratch, started training with the girls again, and then slowly got higher and higher.”