Gregorio Paltrinieri thanks Domenico Acerenza after resounding feat

Paltrinieri thanks Acerenza

Gregorio Paltrinieri is over the moon after winning gold in the 10km open water race at the World Championships in Budapest.

“It’s a dream. First and second is the best thing that could happen. When I started I could feel that he was behind me and not Wellbrock,” says the Fiamme Oro and Coopernuoto holder, last year’s European tricampion here. Mimmo I feel it from the way he touches my feet, he squired for me and I thank him. The strategy was to let him go, that he would carry me to a final where I could attack and wear him down starting from a distance; I drank a lot and then the last 1500 I pulled hard starting on my favorite side. We are great friends with Acerenza; we trained a lot of time together in Ostia this year. I come back with four medals which is almost the full haul; I started this post-Olympic season well, training hard and proved to myself that I could do well. At the beginning of this new adventure you always get a thousand worries especially after the 800 in the pool. There I got discouraged and thought I was going home with nothing. But instead it was the spark, because I needed to break the ice to start a compelling ride,” recounted the Carpigian.