Last year, between the World Championships in Budapest and the European Championships in Rome, even the less expert public was able to realize that the Italian national swimming team is as strong as it has ever been. He wins more medals than in the past and often does so by setting new Italian, European and world records. The most representative athlete of this new generation of Italian swimmers is the 22-year-old Thomas Ceccon, who for about a year has started to win medals in every race he participates in: and there are many, because he tries to compete as much as possible at each event, always to win.
At the Swimming World Championships underway in Japan, Ceccon will do about fifteen races, between heats and finals. He has already won one and it meant a lot, because no Italian athlete had ever won a world medal in the 50m butterfly (or dolphin, a specialty that doesn’t exist at the Olympics). Ceccon also won gold and improved the Italian record, which he already held, half an hour after qualifying for the final of the 100m backstroke, where on Tuesday he failed to defend the world title he won a year ago (with a world record) finishing second by 5 cents behind the American Ryan Murphy. Then he will also do the 50m backstroke, he has already won a silver in the 4 × 100m freestyle relay and he will also do the medley.
«The ambitions are always high, otherwise what have we come here to do» he said after the batteries of the last few days. And after the gold won in the 50m-butterfly he stopped to talk to the press about the movement and the ambitions of the rest of the national team, which according to him still focuses too much on participation alone, without always aiming for victory. Some of his teammates didn’t like his latest statements, such as Lorenzo Zazzeri, who a Sky Sport he said: «These are judgments that a coach must give, not an athlete. I know he said it in good faith, I know him and I love him, but you always have to have faith in your teammates ».
Ceccon made himself known for his ability to win a lot and in different specialties, a trait he developed thanks to a physique suited to the discipline (he is 1.97 meters tall and weighs 87 kilos) and modeled with obsessive practice and years of rigorous training, as swimming requires at the highest levels. Now that the victories have arrived, he is also making himself known for what he says. In some respects it can recall Federica Pellegrini, the most successful athlete of the previous generation, who in her years as an athlete spared no outbursts and criticisms. They also have Venetian origins in common: Pellegrini is from the Venetian province, Ceccon comes from the Vicenza area and now lives in Verona because he trains at the Federal Center, as Pellegrini did in her time. And in Verona the two crossed paths for a few years: «I saw her whole days banging in the pool without suffering pain, an incredible champion» recalled Ceccon a few months ago.
Ceccon at the International Swimming Championships in Rome (Gian Mattia D’Alberto/LaPresse)
Ceccon’s mother was an Italian roller skating champion. His father was an army pentathlete, is now a nurse and he was his son’s first coach: «He spent eight hours in the water. He knew how to do the handstand, he had the right timing when he played football, he could ski and play tennis. But he was thin, with long arms and hands, he was born to swim »he told Republic after the World Cup in Budapest. When he talks about his son’s journey in swimming, he usually calls it “the project” because it was a process planned and supported by the whole family, which for years changed homes and habits to accommodate the activities of an obviously talented son.
Ceccon entered the national swimming team between the ages of 15 and 16, but of that period he often recalled the bad environment that he said he found in the group. To the Newspaper he said: «Perhaps because I was the last to arrive and also very young. I was 16, someone was at least 15 older. I couldn’t fit into that group and I certainly didn’t think I was being accommodating just to please someone. But now there is none of that anymore.” At the Italian Championships he already has twenty gold medals, distributed equally between freestyle, backstroke and butterfly; internationally he focuses more on the latter two disciplines.
Given his age and the already numerous victories obtained in different specialties, he is inevitably described as a great talent, il bigger than an already very talented national team, both in men’s and women’s. However, every time he hears from him, he is keen to specify that he doesn’t like to talk about talent, because in his way of seeing things, behind the results there are above all work and years of sacrifices: already at fourteen, for example, he used to train not only every day after school, but also before, accompanied by his parents between the swimming pools of Vicenza and Verona.
In the meantime, however, results and records continue to arrive and could do so at this rate for at least three to four years, as Ceccon explained these days when he became the fourth Italian swimmer to win at least five world medals, after Federica Pellegrini, Gregorio Paltrinieri and Massimiliano Rosolino. And these four years could include two editions of the Olympic Games: next year in Paris, where Ceccon aims to win the gold medals he failed to obtain in Tokyo (he won a silver and a bronze in the relay), and then in Los Angeles in 2028.
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2023-07-25 12:44:03
#swimming #years #Thomas #Ceccon
