«I’m announcing my retirement now. I had already decided before Paris: this Olympics would be the last act of my competitive career. I wanted it to be the end of my career. I’m sorry it wasn’t like that. But the time has come to say enough and, believe me, I am at peace. Physically the injuries are making themselves felt.” In an interview with ‘BresciaOggì, Vanessa Ferrari made her retirement from competitive activity official, in fact almost a given after yet another injury that cost her participation in the Paris Olympics.
Born in Orzinuovi on 10 November 1990, the champion from Lombardy was world champion in 2006, European champion in 2007 and vice-champion in floor exercise at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The first Italian athlete to graduate from the world championship in artistic gymnastics, a performance achieved in Aarhus (Denmark) in 2006, in the same year she was awarded the CONI’s golden collar of sporting merit and, at the beginning of 2007, she received the presidential honor of Knight of Merit of the Republic.
In his international palmares, in addition to the 2006 title, he boasts an Olympic silver, a silver and three world bronzes, eight medals at the European championships between 2006 and 2021 (including four golds), five victories in the World Cup between 2007 and 2021 and eight golds in two editions of the Mediterranean Games, which make her the most successful Italian sportswoman in the history of this event. She took part in four editions of the Olympic Games, the first Italian gymnast to achieve this feat. Since 2009 he has competed for the sports group of the Italian Army, an armed force in which he holds the rank of chosen corporal major. At national level he holds 22 titles (7 in the general competition) in the overall championships, the first of which he won in 2004, and 11 championships won with the Brixia team in the Serie A1 Championship.
Nicknamed the ‘Farfallà di Orzinuovi and the ‘Cannibalè, she was also the first Italian gymnast to have performed the “Silivas” twisted Tsukahara, a double backward jump collected with a double twist.
