Who is Sara Curtis, the young promise of Italian swimming
By coming eighth in the final of the women’s 100 freestyle at the Singapore World Championships, Sara Curtis made Italian swimming history. Why? Because never before had an Italian, in a rainbow event, made it to the last act of the distance considered the queen of pool races.
Sara Curtis was born on August 19, 2006, in Savigliano, in the province of Cuneo: in a few days, therefore, she will be 19 years old. Her dad Vincenzo is from Piedmont, and her mom Helen is from Nigeria. She was “thrown into the water,” as she puts it, at age two, and at six she began competitive swimming. Her first club was, and still is, Centro Sportivo Roero, but now she is also part of the Army Sports Center. her coach, since she was 10 years old, is Thomas Maggiora.
Between 2022 and 2024 at the junior European Championships, he won ten gold medals, including four at the individual level: in the 50 freestyle in 2023 and 2024 and in the 100 freestyle and 50 backstroke in 2024. Also at the junior level, he won three silver medals at the World Championships, including one in the 50 freestyle in 2022, and two bronze medals.
At the senior level, he made his debut in 2023 at the European Short Course Championships in Opopeni, winning two silvers in the relays, and the following year, in addition to an eighth-place finish in the 4×100 freestyle and a semifinal in the 50 freestyle at the 2024 Paris Games, he won gold in the 4×50 freestyle at the World Short Course Championships in Budapest.
Last April 15, he set the overall Italian long-distance record in the 100 freestyle in 53″01 in Riccione and the next day the 50 in 24″43. On the shorter distance as a junior she was European record holder in 2024 in 24″56 but also, on December 12, 2024, world record holder of the 50 backstroke in 26″03.
In addition to swimming, with which it was love at first sight, her passions include U.S. rap, and reading mystery novels and poetry. She loves solitude and hearing the sound of her strokes when she swims. She has a swimmer boyfriend, Andrea Pusceddu, a dolphinist a year older than her.
As it turns out, a career full of good results, and now, notoriety thanks to the historic qualification for the 100 freestyle final at the World Championships in Singapore. The final eighth place finish may be the beginning of Sara Curtis’ climb to the top of world swimming.
