Manuel Bortuzzo, two golds in Paralympic swimming. «I had to relearn from scratch»- Corriere.it

It was the first days of May 2019. He was still at Santa Lucia, the rehabilitation center in Rome where sport is in the foreground.
Manuel Bortuzzo he had been hit by a bullet in the back which had rendered him paraplegic a few months earlier, on 3 February. For the first time she told about him that dream of his, still far to come: I would like to go to the Paralympics. I’ll have to put myself under so much to compete.

He had talked about it with Bebe Vio and Luca Pancalli, the president of the Paralympic Committee, who is also somewhat the father of all athletes. Those words of him and the images of those first strokes in the hospital pool were part of a story on 7, with his photo in the pool on the cover. Several years passed and that dream remained such, set aside for other thoughts and situations. Television and cinema and new encounters. It seemed that it was no longer a target. Although swimming never left my head. It took a fencing champion like Aldo Montano, met at Big Brother, to awaken that worm that had never left.

For about a year and a half, water has returned to being the reference element, and not just for fun. There was first a second place in the 100 breaststroke SB4 at the Italian short course Paralympic swimming championships, viaticum for a great event, such as the World Series which took place in Friuli, in Lignano Sabbiadoro, over the weekend. Manuel won his first international competitions: gold in the 100 breaststroke s5 sb4 and in the 200 medley sm5. Two beautiful gold medals that allow him to look with hope at the next World Cup, scheduled for this summer in Manchester, also important for an increasingly possible call-up to the national team and qualification for Paris 2024: It was my first experience in an international Paralympic competition and I was very excited. Great to have rediscovered the adrenaline of the race. it was like having to learn to swim againeverything is so different from what I was doing before in the water, but the direction I took was the right one.

The Italian Paralympic swimming national team of president Roberto Valori, who in the past was part of the national team before becoming a manager (the same path as his swimming partner Luca Pancalli, current president of the CIP), and technically led by a technician of great value like Riccardo Vernole for years at the top of the world and a point of reference, by organization and results, in the world. Bortuzzo has been registered since last summer by the Finp, the Italian Paralympic swimming federation, and is part of the sports group of the State Police, like several athletes of the national team and his coach Francesco Bonanni, who was also an Italian and European champion. He trains at the Police sports center in Tor di Quinto: I have to thank the Fiamme Oro for the help they are giving me, which is fundamental.