Fabio Scozzoli retires. Today the Italian frog excels in the world also thanks to him

On the left side of the chest of Fabio Scozzoli there is a tattoo of the five Olympic rings and a time, 8.11pm, drawn inside the black circle. At 20.11, at the London 2012 Olympics, the final of the 100 breaststroke began in which Scozzoli started as one of the favorites to get on the podium after obtaining the second fastest time in the semifinal. He finished seventh, the stain of his career, as he candidly admits. A few months later, in December 2012, in Istanbul, Scozzoli became the first Italian swimmer ever to win a gold medal at the short course World Championships. The race started right at 20.11. At 20.11 tomorrow, Saturday 24 June, Fabio Scozzoli will be a former athlete.

The 50 breaststroke of the Seven Hills Trophy of Rome – the second and final selection test for the Italian national team for the long course World Championships to be held in July in Japan – will represent his farewell to competitive swimming. Fabio Scozzoli retires at 34 after winning 6 medals at the World Cup and 22 at the European Championships, after wearing the metaphorical captain’s armband of Italy and after two knee operations. He will continue the path that he has already started in recent years, to become an athletic trainer and coach of Imolanuoto.

“I didn’t decide so long ago,” says Scozzoli, “although I’ve been thinking about it for a year. But the final decision I made two or three weeks ago. After a race that didn’t go well, I understood that it was no longer a pleasure for me. So I said enough. It was almost a liberation to make the final decision because I was in limbo for a bit, but I think that once you reach a certain age you also need to have the courage to move on. Surely the fact of having already partially opened a new door helped to close the previous one more easily. The best memory is the first victory at the 2010 European Championships, in Budapest, in the 50 breaststroke, because it was unexpected and I think unexpected emotions are the strongest emotions”.

Scozzoli has gone through all the changes of the breaststroke, the swimming specialty that has evolved and accelerated the most in recent decades. From 1968 (date of introduction of the 100m breaststroke at the Olympics) to today the world record has been lowered by about ten seconds by both men and women. In the same period, progress in the 100m freestyle was only five seconds for the men and seven for the women. At the Sydney 2000 Olympics, the blue Domenico Fioravanti conquered the gold medal in 1’00”46, now the world record of the British Adam Peaty is 56”88. “We started from the elegance and swimming efficiency of the Japanese Kōsuke Kitajima, which was the mantra of my early career years, to move on to the explosiveness of the South African Cameron van der Burgh and then to the strength and frequency of Peaty” , says Scozzoli, who in 2009 became the first Italian to go under one minute in the 100m breaststroke. “I think I have absorbed all this information and I will try as much as possible to pass it on to my future students”.

Today, Italian breaststroke athletes are among the rulers of the specialty. Nicolò Martinenghi and Benedetta Pilato are the reigning 100m world champions. Federico Poggio, Simone Cerasuolo, Arianna Castiglioni and Martina Carraro train with Scozzoli, in Imola, under the guidance of Cesare Casella, who has also been his since last year wife. “The Italian frog is a school done well”, concludes Scozzoli. “I don’t like celebrating myself, but I think I’ve been a point of reference for new breaststroke riders for many years. One thing I think I was a bit of a pioneer in is the speed of the first 15 metres, the start. From there the extraordinary speed that we have was born, because we Italians are really strong in speed. Martinenghi over the years has learned to come out strong and start in front of everyone. We understood that starting up front is an advantage. So why not take the time to learn something that gives you an incredible edge?”