Paris Olympics 2024, the special dedication to the lost companion of the rowing athletes

“We dedicate this medal to Filippo who is watching us up there. Filippo has waited 3 years for this moment. It is for him, for his family. We made him a promise and we succeeded.” Luca Chiumento, Giacomo Gentili, Andrea Panizza and Luca Rambaldi They won silver in the men’s quad final: gold for the Netherlands and bronze for Poland. The Azzurri are back on the podium after sixteen years, a medal missing since Beijing 2008. The dedication is for Filippo Mondelli, their teammate who died of osteosarcoma before the Tokyo Olympics at the age of 27 in 2021.

“I finally won that medal that I had to win for Pippo. I didn’t manage to do it in Tokyo, but today I did it,” said Giacomo Gentili, one of the Italian quadruple sculls who won the silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Corriere della Sera. Andrea Panizza adds: «I promised the Mondelli family that we would win an Olympic medal in the quad sculls: we did it and Pippo will be proud of us».

These giant boys were all moved at the end of the race and at the moment of the podium. “I think that at a time like this a bit of rhetoric is justified. All the work, all the shovelfuls in training, were to get here. I finally won that medal that I had to win for Pippo: I hadn’t managed to do it in Tokyo but today I did it. I kept my promise” explained Gentili from Cremona who grew up with Filippo Mondelli, his peer, and who with him won gold in the 2018 World Championships and bronze in those of 2019.

In January 2020 the diagnosis of osteosarcoma in the left leg, discovered due to pain in the leg. He had undergone surgery at the Rizzoli Orthopedic Institute in Bologna and then underwent 14 cycles of chemotherapy. On 11 April 2021 in Varese, his teammates dedicated the gold medal won in front of Holland at the European Championships to him. Philip Mondelli who died at the end of that April, said he had “one of those things that you feel but when it happens to you, you are left speechless and you don’t know what to say or do”. At the funeral, Filippo’s mother gave the flag to Giacomo Gentili. They carry it with them on all the competition fields. The Ferrarese summarizes it Luca Rambaldi: «We have fulfilled our dream, and Filippo’s».

Filippo’s sister, Elisa, is also at the Olympics with the women’s eight. “When he was very ill and was nearing the end, I told him I would go to the Olympic Games for him. He was my number one fan, and always will be. Being here, also celebrating the silver medal of his friends, is an immense victory. For me, for my family, for rowing.”