Paralympics, Italy sets a record with 24 golds and 71 medals

From our correspondent

PARIS

Au revoir, Paris. And how you made our hearts flutter. The Italian national team will parade tonight at the Stade de France for the closing ceremony with 71 medals (in 12 sports), better than Tokyo's 69 and with 24 golds, compared to Japan's 14. Swimming is Italy's treasure chest with 37 podiums (16 golds), third best nation in the world in swimming, behind China and Great Britain. Never as at the Paralympics are medals not counted, but weighed. Each one has a story, or rather, as the coach of the Italian swimming team, Max Tosin, always reminds us, 'each one is the result of choices, of roads to be taken and travelled'. All the blue medals shine, including the many fourth places, but if there is one that brings them all together, it is the relay gold (and the three individual bronzes) won by Giulia Terzi in the pool. A mother of six months of Edoardo, she went to training at the Cambini-Fossati pool in Milan with her pram and baby bottle. She had the courage to recognise her weaknesses and find strength: 'I cried a lot these days but I had promised Edoardo, I will leave you with your grandmother and come back with the medal (four in fact, ed.). I am proud of me, I want to be a good mum and a winning athlete'. In short, start your impossible.

Medals and records, hundredths a step away from the podium: this is the magic of the Italian athletes. They ran, swam, jumped beyond their opponents and adversities. They are the cover of the Games, unique and beautiful, but all of them, in the mixed zones of these days, after analysing the sports performance, said thank you (yes, they also reminded us how little we say thank you...). Family, friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, trainers, coaches. The behind the scenes of each medal is endless, it is a journey, an adventure where there is also a lot of planning, the offering of ad hoc courses for Paralympic sport technicians. This is demonstrated, for example, by the exponential growth of Italian swimming on the global chessboard: at every event in Italy, whether large or small, it fills the arenas with children, the athletes of Brisbane 2032. But there is also another world to consider. Augusto Bizzi, a long-time photographer at the Paralympics, reminds us: 'Let us remember who dresses, who accompanies, who helps the athletes in their daily lives, of these silent figures sport feeds on and, at the same time, needs them badly'. So that sport can truly be a contaminator of social change.

Today, after eleven days of racing, the Eiffel Tower looks more stylised than ever. Two commas, one leaning against the other. Like "hito", the kanji meaning person in Japanese and almost walking. Two sober features joining at the tip. Is it not true that we live by leaning on each other and that our raison d'être is only as a function of the other?