Gregorio Paltrinieri makes his debut in the 10 km at the Fukuoka World Swimming Championships – Corriere.it

It’s still Greg, but it’s always a different Greg. The forerunner, the captain, the indefatigable man of open waters and swimming pools, wetsuits and swimsuits, the more mature boy who went to live together in Rome with his fiancée, the swordsman Rossella Fiamingo, the first to jump (after the girls of the 10 km Giulia Gabbrielleschi and Ginevra Taddeucci), the first to keep us awake tonight while chasing a medal and an Olympic pass in the murky waters of Fukuoka’s Seaside Momochi Beach Park, just below the hotel of the blues, just get off with goggles, wetsuit and towel and away, instead of an umbrella, there is the 10km trap.

The competition area is trivial (a square formed by four sides to be covered six times), the water (dark, practically zero underwater visibility) around 25-26°, the air temperature around 35, hot, sure, but there have been more extreme conditions. The problem is that Gregorio Paltrinieri had a small relapse two days ago and he’s not doing very well, his approach to the World Cup of his almost 29 years began with an intestinal problem in Livigno, in the first part of the preparation carried out on high ground, everything seemed passed, another ten days near Nagano at an altitude of 1750 meters to acclimate, then another small alarm.

«It’s not 100 percent – ​​explains his coach Fabrizio Antonelli from Fukuoka —, it could affect a little. Up until two days ago he was back in the mood, then this other episode knocked him down a bit. But it’s always Greg, already this morning I saw him more serene». If someone with mononucleosis returns from the Olympics in Japan with a silver in the 1500m and a bronze in the 10km, nothing can be said to be compromised now. We are in a pre-Olympic year, “which we have taken in serenity, swimming a little less, leaving him time for important steps in personal growth, such as living together, which are also good for swimmers”.

The theme will rather be managing the five efforts, as usual, after the 10 km (with his usual opponents, his training partner Mimmo Acerenza, the usual German Wellbrock, the Hungarian Rasovszky, while there will be no Romanchuk who has given up and the quarrelsome French Olivier, who always trains in Ostia with Antonelli, suspended by his Federation due to an altercation with a manager), the 5km, the cross-country relay, the 1500m and the 800m. «It’s an excellent thing that we start from the sea, because the 10km is the most intense to start, Greg will know how to handle it. Since he split, the fish named Gregorio has never stopped modifying, changing, learning, evolving. He learned to improvise, to manage the unexpected events of sea races, he refined tactics and strategies that the linearity of the pool seemed to exclude (like when, in the 1500s, at the Budapest World Championships he chose lane no.1 to escape the sight of his opponents) , changed the swim. «We’ve been working on it for a while, the goal is to improve the performance of the swim, its efficiency, to ensure that it can optimize the energy available for the various competitions. Going forward over the years he will lose some energy, but gain in maturity and management skills, you will see a Greg with a different approach, I don’t expect him to board, he will have more careful management, and he will improve technically and tactical”.

An always different Greg, but always Greg: «He is someone who starts from a certain, let’s say, genetic advantage. And then, you know, he gets excited in the race. Let’s start with the 10 km which has the charm of bringing Olympic qualifications with it, and then one leads to another, up to the 1500m which remains the race of his heart ». Yes, it’s always Greg.