This article is published in Vanity Fair issue 28-29 on newsstands until July 20, 2021
We started from zero, the number of women competing in the first Games of the modern era, and we are at one 49 percent rounded up by the Olympic committee and the record of female appearances within the blue team, ready to parade in the opening ceremony on 23 July. As of today, as we write, the qualified Italians are 173 and it is not a goal, it is a journey that brings with it the experiences and struggles and successes of many.
An uphill path that has tempered the Tokyo generation: athletes ready to take the stage even for those who could not be there, even against the thousand “no” that they inherited and unhinged, and also for those who will come tomorrow, until they reach really parity. They raised their voices and must be listened to.
When you spend six months off with a career-questioning injury and 40 days with Covid fever, the Olympics start out of bed. Letizia Paternoster, 22 years old on 22 July, she dreamed of them as a child in front of the Pantani poster that recalled great enterprises and imagined them while she alternated between road and track, she felt them as hers until the light went out. It was under a car. November 2019, horrible accident: «I immediately understood that I could stay dry “, but with a broken tooth, several fractures and a broken wrist she also realized she was alive, “strangely I felt like I was overcoming the fear there, while I was still on the asphalt.”
After the scare arrived, the terror arrived: “I was reading about the aftermath caused by Covid and I thought it was me, that’s it, over, but I thank my family and my boyfriend who never let me go on a video call”. After an eternity Letizia gets back on her feet, resumes training and slowly competes, “It was hard hard hard“. The light came back on when she managed to get three days in a row on the pedals and the memories resurfaced, the beautiful ones: “I climbed onto the saddle of a two-wheeler that was still crawling, they called me tomboy and maybe that’s why I never did case to the difference between the sexes “. Not her, some others yes, great classics: «Being on a bike is not very feminine. Stuff like that, but no one in my environment, all splendid there ». The run-up was so long that its Games have already started.
Photo: GIAMPAOLO VIMERCATI
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