The bronze blues, tough on the podium of synchronized diving

FROM THE SENT TO FUKUOKA. The answer to “where do I go after a zero?” is on the podium. And it’s a direct road, one competition after another: Elena Bertocchi and Chiara Pellacani take a bronze medal and an Olympic card in the three-metre synchro. It is a surprise and at the same time a sought-after redemption, it is dealing with luck live, as the Azzurri say «it is sport and that is why there is nothing better».

Bertocchi left the race from one meter with a zero that made her cry, she lost her balance in the pre-jump and slipped into the water. Unscored, she last: «For two days I thought about throwing myself off a bridge«, only that she says it laughing with a medal around her neck and a cuddly toy in her hand. The Azzurri showed strength and decision, they didn’t try the routine together very much, one lives in Rome, the other returned from Louisiana only for the European Championships a few weeks ago, in practice they met and trained there. During a competition. Both are recovering from physical problems that have conditioned their preparation, above all Elena remained stationary for a long time due to a complicated back operation done to solve a chronic annoyance due to the presence of a tumour, fortunately benign, a cyst to be removed: «Before that they understood the nature of the pain, I wanted to stop, I was fed up with feeling pain, those stitches in my back, the constant discomfort and it was not clear why, I was going crazy». In March, the operation and then the recovery, above all, the liberation «after so much suffering, I lack a lot of work compared to what I would need, but training like this is a completely different thing». And in the best of the newfound serenity, zero has arrived, «a beating. You work all your life for a result and completely unexpected things happen, positive and negative». In her case, after two days.

The girls will still compete on the three-metre springboard, each on their own and for Pellacani there is still the test paired with Matteo Santoro, they won silver at the last World Championships, she is a veteran of podiums and Bertocchi pays tribute to her the role of leader even if she is eight years younger than her: «When she appeared in the national team she was 16, I acted as an older sister, now she has taken over the lead and supports me, here it is fundamental, even if she wakes me up my mental coach gave it to me and wrote to me: you are a champion. I thought it was true.” She and she went up on the trampoline convinced that she was, zeros are taken and thrown away.