Federica Pellegrini in “Oro”: I said to Marin who was spying on me: “I have sex with whoever I want”

Golds and betrayals. Love, sex, some lies, but also sporting triumphs. And the emotions of a not only sporting star. Goldthe book written by Federico Pellegrini to tell about herself, her successes, her falls and her fears – won in the tub, but also at home and with the support of her mother – is now in the bookstore (The ship of Theseus208 pages).

And, for the first time, she herself tells the sentimental plot that in 2011 rocked the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai. She, he, the other. Where he was the boyfriend of the time, Luca Marineand the other was Philip Magniniteammate of Luca and of Federica, to which a very long story would later tie him. Except that in Shanghai Marin didn’t know what was (already) happening. It is Pellegrini himself who tells it, in a couple of pages in which she confesses how even before breaking off the relationship with her Marin she was “in love like a teenager” with another. Where that other was just the teammate. Just imagine the tension, in that retreat at the hotel, “a pre-race collegiate on the spot to get used to the time difference” that began a few weeks before the World Cup. Marin senses the coldness of the Divine: “he began to feel bad, not eating and losing weight a great deal. He was suspicious, restless. And he wasn’t wrong”. Then she leaves him. “The day I left him he asked me if there was another one and I denied it”. In short, nobody knows about the parallel story at that time.

But evidently Marin suspects. And indeed, something happens the following evening: she tries to escape to Magnini’s room, but to do so she has to pass in front of Marin’s room. “But could I ever know that he was lurking behind the peephole to surprise me?”. He yells at her not to tease him, asks where he’s going, she pretends to be on her phone with her mom, they argue, she calms him down. A problem postponed. But two nights later, the bomb exploded, setting fire to the retreat. Pellegrini in the book, tells it like this: “I open the door, I leave the room, I look around: all clear. I reach Filippo’s room, but at the climax we hear a wild banging against the door: I heard everything, go out or there I’ll kill him! Filippo and I won’t open. Luca is beside himself, he would have ended up in a fight”.

Pellegrini then recounts that the managers of the national team arrived to rescue them from the predicament, to whom she and Magnini had telephoned. But the story was not over yet, because after calming down Marin, obviously, the executives wanted a clarification between the two, since they would still have to share the retirement for a long time. And she, convinced that he is calm, joins him in the hall. “I’m going downstairs, I’m calm, I don’t care, I haven’t done anything wrong, it’s just my business. Luca yells, do you realize what you’re doing? That I’m sick? Sorry, I answer him, we split up for two days ago so I can do what I want. More exactly, I say in front of the leaders of the Federation, I can fuck whoever I want”.