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When fair play wins: the best stories of 2021

You can lose with a smile, going to shake your opponent’s hand and showing that sport also includes – have we forgotten about it? – the fair play. Recognizing that the opponent was better than us is not easy, but it contributes to the growth of everyone, of those who win today and lose tomorrow, and vice versa.

Applause therefore a Lewis Hamilton who congratulates on the World Cup won by Max Verstappen, in the craziest Formula final in recent history; hat off in front of the Englishman because everything is still hot, a few moments after Verstappen, overturning the prediction and the thread of events, blew his colleague the victory that would have allowed him – the only driver in history – to put his eighth world title on the board.

We are always sincerely admired when some protagonist of the sport does not complain about the defeat but accepts it, as one of the two hypotheses, win or lose, without anger or hatred. So it was when the coach of the Spanish national team Luis Enrique saw his team lose the European semi-final on penalties, against Mancini’s Italy who would later win the title. With an extraordinary serenity, Luis Enrique confirmed his special diversity, going first to shake hands with Mancini and congratulate our players.

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There is a lot of talk about the Olympic spirit, but sometimes we tend to forget what it really is. Olympic spirit, as happened at the Tokyo 2020 Games, is the Japanese surfer Kanoa Igarashi who, after losing the gold by a whisker on his home beach, despite being disappointed and despondent, did not hesitate to help the Brazilian Italo Ferreira, who had just beaten him in a very particular circumstance: the post-victory press conference. He could have easily done without it, Kanoa Igarashi; yet, when he saw the Brazilian in difficulty and unable to express himself in front of the cameras, he went to his rescue, helping him with the translation. A small gesture for a great champion.

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Reach out, not only ideally, it is what the American runner Isaiah Jewett the athlete from Botswana did Nijel amos. Both engaged in the semi-final of the 800 meters in Tokyo, first they collided, then they fell, finally they got up, helping each other, and closing the race together. Solidarity, encouragement, the ability to see beyond one’s nose and to have empathy with those who ran, sweated and made sacrifices with you.

Why share the joy of a colleague or an opponent is not at all simple. So we all greatly appreciated the embrace with which Sofia Goggia hugged Federica Brignone after a victory. A sincere, warm and above all spontaneous hug, which silenced the rivalry between our two Queens of the Snows but which in an instant gave us back the truest sense of sport.

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