Rowing, silver medal for Italy and a boat of emotions and hugs

Paris - Five of them rowed that foursome. Giacomo Gentili, Luca Rambaldi, Luca Chiumento and Andrea Panizza, oars in hand, heart going wild, mind and rowing leader keeping time and rhythm, the Dutch taking off in front and the Poles chasing you row after row. And in this hell of sweat, sun, clouds, water and sky, the knowledge that you have to bring that medal home for you, for your crewmates, and for him, the fifth, who is no longer there but has been there with you, with you, with them since that day.

If the memory of Filippo Mondelli, the young rower from Como who was a member of this same crew, world champion in 2018 and who died of osteosarcoma in 2021 at the age of just 26, brought a lump to the writer's throat as that boat crossed its silver medal finish line, well, that same memory became tears and a look upwards for those young men whom the hard bread of rowing transformed into men and champions. Because in a crew of that kind, life and rowing are inextricably intertwined, almost becoming the very framework of the boat, the body and soul of that bow driven to reconnect history and memory.

This is what those four (pardon, five) boys did on the Vaire sur Marne basin, with their rowing, their hugs of joy. Of joy and emotion, when that same embrace was exchanged a few hours later and with the medal around their necks, at Casa Italia in the heart of the Bois de Boulogne with Filippo Mondelli's parents. If they had only come to Paris to exchange this one embrace, it would have been enough; but they will certainly dedicate another and even more, whatever the outcome, to their sister Elisa, who is also an Italian and competing in the women's eight.

Rowing, hugs that tell pieces of life, of our lives, to remind us that every pure thing must have meaning, merit and direction. And so the last hug in this story of emotions, silver, joy, memory, melancholy was taken by surprise by the one who told it to you.

Because it just so happened that three years ago, in Cernusco sul Naviglio, on a wonderful evening of sport and affection, we had a chat with Valentina Rodini and Federica Cesarini, fresh from the legendary gold medal won in Tokyo2021 in the two light-weight pairs. And that a little further on was Federica's fiancé, who was none other than Luca Chiumento, then struggling with the difficult memory of the bitter fifth place achieved in Japan and thus illuminated in reflection by his partner's gold.