«I’m really happy, I wanted to win, I knew the medal was within my reach but I didn’t think I’d do 15’46» and for this I’m even happier». So to the microphones of Rai Sport Simona Quadarella comments on the gold won in the 1500m at the swimming world championships Doha. «I wanted to take this gold – he added – There is a lot of Simona in this medal, today I put something extra into it. To whom do I dedicate this medal? For myself, I was struggling a lot lately, I thought several times whether it was right to come to Doha then I decided to come and put myself to the test.”
The elite
Winning the world gold in the 1500 freestyle, Quadarella climbed onto the world podium for the fifth time consecutive and excelled over the same distance in two editions of the long course world championships, he entered the ‘club’ of two other big names in Italian swimming. Federica Pellegrini stood on the world podium eight consecutive times in the 200m freestyle between 2005 and 2019, winning on four occasions and Gregorio Paltrinieri in five in the 1500m freestyle between 2013 and 2022, winning three times. If we look, however, at the overall world championship medals in the long course, Quadarella (eight European golds on the board), stood at six like Thomas Ceccon (absent at the Doha World Championships for scheduling reasons), a figure that puts them behind by Pellegrini (11) and Paltrinieri (8).