The miracle man emerges from the water with yet another medal around his neck. In Tokyo in 2021 he had been silver, his 800 meters are still bronze and they still have a sense of enterprise: because another three years have passed and Gregorio Paltrinieri on the threshold of 30 years (a round figure will arrive in September for the ’94 class) is still there in the middle, milling strokes passing with ease from the pool to the sea, but always on the podium. At the Defense Arena, starting slowly, he came back and at 600 was in the lead, followed by Irishman Daniel Wiffen who however had more in the last hundred, he stretched out taking the gold with the Olympic record in 7’38”19, ahead of the American Bobby Finke, gold in Tokyo. Paltrinieri finished third in 7:39.38 confirming the bronze that he had won in Japan against everyone and above all against the mononucleosis that had undermined his body and put his mind to the test.
“The strategy this time was new, I had been waiting for something like this for a long time. I’m not that fast anymore, but I have sharpened other cards. I waited for a moment like this, I’m happy. This means everything. I had been waiting for a race like this for a long time, I’m happy – the words of the Italian captain – I convince myself that I’m fine when I get here. Sometimes I’m convinced I can’t do it anymore, these are the moments. Getting a medal in the first race… After the Sette Colli, where I swam terribly, we even thought about not doing the 800. I’m no longer the one who starts fastest, I have to resign myself, I’ve honed other weapons”. Intelligence, tactics and experience still give him the winning sprint.
And while Greg was taking the bronze, at the Grand Palais, a few miles away, girlfriend Rosella Fiamingo with the épée team he was beating the hosts France, winning the gold, the third for Italy in these first days of the Games. Paltrinieri dared, as the captain of the Italian swimming team has always done: he changed coaches, cities, until he combined the middle distance in the pool with long distances in open water, moving from blocks to jellyfish without losing his composure: because the alligator of Italian swimming, captain of Italy who has been surprising the world in the pool for years now, in Paris after the gold double of Nicolò Martinenghi and Thomas Ceccon, he is still there: and there are still the 1500 and the 10 km. Already the race in the tormented Seine, assuming (but it seems difficult) that the Parisian river receives the ok to be suitable for swimming. A can can with attached controversy that however did not distract the national Greg, passionate about basketball but ended up in the pool at three months, not by chance. Rain of golds between world and European championships, the Olympic title of 1500 in Rio to embellish an infinite career. Basketball in the heart, swimming in the arms the blue knows that when age rows against “you have nothing to lose, indeed you can dream and amaze”.