Not even a puncture stops Carlo Calcagni: “We must not set limits for ourselves.”

In his homeland, Puglia, Italian Army Honor Role Colonel Carlo Calcagni once again gave an extraordinary lesson in life, sport and humanity.

After just two kilometers from the start, a puncture in the left rear wheel of his tricycle could have forced him to retire.
He chose to continue on, riding the remaining 38 kilometers of the course with a completely deflated wheel, enduring a deafening noise and continuous friction on the asphalt.

Every meter covered became a symbol of endurance, strength and determination.

Not just a race, but a concrete demonstration of his motto: “Never give up, despite everything and everyone, no matter what the cost.”
“I wanted to show,” Calcagni says, “that it is not disability that limits a person or an athlete. The only real limits are those we impose on ourselves in the mind. Today I continued despite the mechanical accident to testify how important sport is: because sport strengthens the body, the soul and, above all, the mind. It is precisely this mental strength that allows us to face any difficulty, any obstacle, and not to give up, ever. Sport is life, it is passion, it is pure emotion. Anyone should practice it, in any form, because through sports one learns to know oneself, to handle fatigue, to believe in oneself and to turn every limitation into a possibility. Today I wanted to prove it: this was my most important medal, not the gold one I won, but the invisible one you win inside, continuing, even and especially, when everything seems to invite you to stop. Anyone could have pulled out in front of a punctured wheel, but I wanted to keep going to prove that it is not problems that have to stop us. When you have a goal, you have to pursue it with commitment, effort and sacrifice, because that is the only way to give value to the goal achieved. Today I suffered more, I struggled more, but I reached my goal, and that is what really makes the difference.”