Alex Schwazer on the stage of Sanremo 2021: “I’ll be back to win”

There was no bitterness in the story of Alex Schwazer. There was no victimhood, the rhetorical attempt to elicit some movement of compassion. The champion, Olympic gold medalist in the fifty kilometer walk in Beijing 2008, did not seek empathy, but redemption. “Nobody will give me back the life I lost, there is no going back. What can be done is to remedy “, said, guest of the second evening of the Sanremo Festival,”I have a lot of determination, I want to close this circle. I won in court, but I am a sportsman and I want to win on the competition field.

And there I will return », Schwazer’s promise, which the Court of Bolzano,« a courageous judge, who was my luck in bad luck », acquitted of the doping charge.

A urine sample was falsified in Rio in 2016 to result in the sample being disqualified. “I ended up in court because I had to defend myself against this charge, at first. Later, I wanted to prove my innocence, ”he explained. “I was tried in Rio four and a half years ago. Now, I want to be judged again by sports justice, because in these five years I have lost an Olympics and several races, and I don’t want to lose any more », despite the suffering being mitigated by the love of the family. “My wife has given the things in my life proper weight. This story was very heavy for me: it gave me so much suffering, so much bitterness. However, I knew that my family would be at home, and this is more important, ”said Schwazer, who still has a clear memory of the Olympics and success in his head. «Winning the Olympics for every athlete is a dream and when, after so much effort and so much sweat you succeed, it remains in you. It is still alive today, as it was ten years ago. “