Miracle of Nicolo Martinenghi! Gold in the 100 breaststroke
Miracle of Nicolò Martinenghi! Gold in the 100 breaststroke
The first gold for Italy at the Paris 2024 Olympics has arrived: Nicolò Martinenghi won the 100-meter breaststroke final, 24 years after Domenico Fioravanti in Sydney. Unreal race for l'Azzurro, who preceded Adam Peaty by two hundredths and Nic Fink by four. An absolutely unexpected medal, the sixth for the Azzurro expedition to France and the first of the most precious metal: Martineghi clinched victory in a final with high times. L'Azzurro finished with a time of 59.03, ahead of Britain's Peaty, silver in 59.05, and the U.S. Fink, bronze with the same time.
These are the words of the Blue to the microphones of Rai 2: "I am speechless, I do not know what to say. Once again I proved that it only matters to be able to seize the moment. The weather was not è of the best, but only being on that podium matters. After winning World and European Championships I also managed to win the Olympics, è really fantastic. During the race I was not thinking about anything, thank you all, I really have no words".
"It's the icing on the cake, I missed it after the European and World Championships. Now I can say d've also won at the Olympics, after taking medal in Tokyo".
Martinenghi thus joins Fioravanti, Rosolino, Paltrinieri and Federica Pellegrini in the very short list of Italian Olympic gold medal swimmers. At the end of the race the swimmer from Varese, in a fit of joy, hugged and kissed his wife.
Italy has won a total of 40 medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, setting a new record for the number of metals placed around its neck in a single edition of the Olympic Games. Taking the highest step; top step of the podium in Japan were Marcell Jacobs – Men’s 100 meters, Gianmarco Tamberi – Men’s high jump, Massimo Stano – Men’s 20 km march, Antonella Palmisano – Women’s 20 km march, Men’s 4×100 relay – Lorenzo Patta, Marcell Jacobs, Eseosa Desalu, Filippo Tortu, Federica Cesarini and Valentina Rodini – Rowing, women’s lightweight doubles, Francesco Lamon, Simone Consonni, Jonathan Milan and Filippo Ganna – Cycling, men’s team pursuit, Luigi Busà – Karate, kumite -75kg and Vito Dell’Aquila – Taekwondo, -58kg.
