Federica Pellegrini and the bare-belly video: “We wanted to downplay”

After the social announcement, comes the commentary.

Federica Pellegrini is back on the video posted on Instagram, in which she showed her belly with the words “We will take it back” (in reference to the record in the 200-meter freestyle, just lost to Australian Molly O’Callaghan). A few hours later, she wanted to provide further clarity in an interview with ‘Sky Sports’.

“Thank you, it also helped dad – Federica Pellegrini smiled at the congratulations with which the interview began – Seeing the record broken we decided to create this video a bit to downplay both things. Regarding my record, it has been 14 years, so it was also time to let it go.”

At that point Federica Pellegrini wanted to explain the genesis of the video that was later posted on Instagram and that got so much talk: “Sooner or later I knew that they were going to come very close to my record. So we said, what do we do if that happens? We combined the two and made this very ironic video. At least we were able to downplay two situations that taken a little bit by themselves would have been much heavier.”

Federica Pellegrini also joked when asked if she was rooting for the red line in her pregnancy test, “Sure, you ask? Of course! No, however, I am glad that she made the record and that I heard her words in the interview right afterwards. Really she was very nice. In my opinion everything was really perfect.”

The reference to the record in that “We’ll take it back” thus suggests that it is a hypothetical female child who will shatter future swimming records. On this aspect, however, Federica Pellegrini put on the brakes. “Everything was done for a reason. Maybe she won’t even like swimming, so I really put the cart before the horse,” she said, never abandoning a big smile.

Finally, the point about the Azzurri of swimming: “Our national team last year was a smash hit,” Federica Pellegrini recalled, “now it is resetting also because this is the real world championship. All the big guys are present and we struggle more even to take the easier medals that we won last year.”