Italtuffi’s twenty-second medal at the World Championships is silver. A silver that shines almost like gold, a color that in the synchronized diving from the men’s springboard went once again, for the twelfth time out of fourteen in total, to China. Lorenzo Marsaglia and Giovanni Tocci broke a taboo, that is, Italy on the podium in the men’s springboard synchro which had come close in 2009 in Rome with the brothers Nicola and Tommasi Marconi left to gnaw by nine hundredths of a point.
A “new” specialty, that of synchronized, introduced only by the Perth ’98 edition, therefore more than twenty years after the Klaus Dibiasi-Giorgio Cagnotto era. At the ‘Hamad Aquatic Center’ in Doha, Qatar things went differently for the blues compared to the Foro Italico. Marsaglia-Tocci, in addition to becoming world vice champions, also snatched the Olympic card for the Paris 2024 Games which was their primary objective. The Italian duo, with the World Cup having just begun, ensured the continuity of Italy’s tradition: for ten editions at least one diver from the Bel Paese had stood on the podium.
The series began in July 2005 in Montreal with Tania Cagnotto’s bronze from the three-metre springboard. Giovanni Tocci, 29 years old from Cosenza and captain of the national team, bearer of the Army, and Lorenzo Marsaglia, 27 years old from Rome, registered with the Navy, scored 384.24 points at the end of the six jumps. Gold goes to China with Long Daoyi and Wang Zongyuan (442.41) confirming themselves as the best in the world seven months after the title won in Fukuoka.
First podium for Italy in this specialty and the same for Spain: Adrian Abadia-Nicolas Garcia Boissier are bronze (383.28). The blue couple opens the compulsory series with two good jumps, the ordinary back pike and the reverse pike. As always happens in a synchronized diving competition, the real fight for medals begins with the free throws. The Azzurri bring an excellent triple somersault and half forward pike which is worth fifth place with China already starting to set the tone. On the fourth rotation Germany made a mistake while Lorenzo and Giovanni perfectly executed the double somersault and half forward pike with two twists.
On the subsequent triple and a half ahead grouped together Tocci and Marsaglia are once again perfect with from the pre-jump to the execution. The last round is as always full of emotions and adrenaline. The Azzurri performed the most difficult jump, the quadruple somersault and a grouped half forward but, despite Marsaglia’s uncertainty in the preparation phase of the dive, the medal was served on a silver platter. At the Paris Olympics also Sarah Jodoin di Maria and Maia Biginelli who entered the eighteen semi-finalists (tomorrow semi-final and final reserved for the best twelve) of the platform competition.