Because Paltrinieri is the best Italian athlete of this era

Comparing champions of different sports and periods is a dangerous but often irresistible game. We’ve been wondering who was better than Pele and Maradona for ages: everyone has their own answer and good reasons to support it. But when we are faced with Gregorio Paltrinieri it is natural to say that he is the best Italian athlete of this era and perhaps also of many others. He swims. He doesn’t run, he doesn’t pedal, he doesn’t jump, he doesn’t play with a ball, a ball or a balloon. He just swims. In the pool and in the sea. Against opponents, against jellyfish and sometimes, like at the Tokyo Games, even against his own body that had fallen ill. He started at three months, he dribbled past his teenage infatuation with basketball, then dived right back in. It’s been since she was 16 (now she’s 28) that she hasn’t missed a season. Between 2016 and 2018 he was simultaneously Olympic, World and European champion in the 1,500m freestyle and not content with accumulating kilometers in the pool, he also set about challenging the sea, managing to win there too, so much so that he dreams of a golden double in the 1,500m freestyle – 10km in open water at the Paris Games in a year’s time. He relaunched the challenge. Never settle. Like Kobe, his absolute idol, someone who never tired of training to improve even when he was already the best.