Paola Egonu’s tears nail us to our responsibilities

Volleyball is a worldwide sport where Italy, with its national teams for men, women and youth, has dominated the scene for decades. The last season, which has just ended, was impressive: our national teams won a gold medal in the men’s senior World Cup, a bronze medal in the women’s one and six gold medals in the six European youth championships, three men and three women. . If we add to these results the two gold medals at the European Seniores, both men and women, at the end of the previous season, it is evident that this string of results represents something that I believe has no precedent in the sporting history of our country.

The last medal in chronological order, that of last Saturday at the Women’s World Cup, won with a sumptuous victory against the United States, was the one that caused the most talk. Not for sporting reasons, unfortunately. At the end of the race Paola Egonu, opposite Azzurri born in Cittadella, province of Padua, daughter of Nigerian parents, confessed in tears to her attorney that she wanted to leave the national team, citing a reason: “They still ask me ‘why are you Italian?'”. She did hater they have always been there, but in this case they raged after a wrong ball in the semifinals, the one that would have led the blue to 2-1 against Brazil. Paola Egonu repeated, this time looking straight into the RAI camera, the pain that all this caused her.

The first reflection that must be made, considering that the first declaration did not arrive in a press room, but was stolen with a mobile phone by a fan, is that we should have respect for what an athlete, at the end of a match, confides in someone you trust. I trained, I lived through those contexts. If I wanted to report what I heard at the end of particularly intense matches (for better or for worse) well, I could write a book. Which I have no intention of doing, precisely because never – without exception – the moment immediately following the most exciting victory or the hottest defeat is never the right one to speak or make decisions.

Paola Egonu, however, is not a normal player. She is a crazy talent and she is a courageous girl, who has become a point of reference for hundreds of thousands of young people in our country, not only for her sporting performances, but also for never being afraid to talk about her sexual orientation or racism. In 2018, four words were enough: “Yes, I have a girlfriend” to generate titles in large letters, which failed, for example, with the 45 points in a single match with which, a few days earlier, he had brought our national team to the final of the previous World Cup. And if today, it should be emphasized, Paola Egonu is twenty-three, at her time she was only nineteen. On Saturday she went back to speaking courageously and explicitly about racism. She did it in tears, after having signed 26 points in the three sets of the final, that is, after having done her job splendidly for our country. She is a strong girl, she will react to her. How other athletes reacted like Faustino Desalu or Zaynab Dosso who wanted to tell about their injuries and, together with Paola Egonu, push us to reflect on something we don’t like to see. Those tears and words are the tears and words of all Paola who do not have the talent and visibility of Paola, but who have the same dignity as her and must have the same rights as her.

Paola’s tears are the tears of all those Paola or those Paolo, children of immigrant families in our country who go to school and play sports with our children, but they cannot be Italian citizens. And neither they nor our children understand why. They are the tears of all Paula or Pauls who want to feel free to love whoever they want. And maybe even being able to declare it, in a world like that of sport where, just a few days ago, a tweet from Iker Casillas (later deleted and explained as hacking, as it happens a little too often) had generated great amazement.

Paola Egonu’s tears also have a sporting meaning that has to do with an internal balance within the team that volleyball requires, by virtue of the extraordinary rule, invented by William Morgan in 1895, which prohibits the possibility of stopping the ball or touching it twice. times in a row, a fact that reminds any volleyball player that it is always the individual who needs the team more than the team needs the individual. The golden rule, however, is that only those who know the dressing room of the team in question can enter into the analysis of that balance. And that locker room is only known to the talented coach Davide Mazzanti and his staff. However, a second aspect opens up which is not only sporting and which cannot be ignored or underestimated. Those tears and those words are not just about Paola Egonu who, I am sure, will react with the strength of every athlete. Those tears are about us. And they nail us to our responsibilities, to our need to be able to control the judgments from the sofa and to represent, with our words and with our attitudes, the modern and civilized country in which we would like to live.