Cristina Chiuso has her say on the Sinner-Pellegrini controversy.
Former Italian swimmer Cristina Chiuso, in an exclusive interview with Sportal.it on the occasion of the “Tennis and Sky Sport’s Summer,” held Monday, May 4, at the Foro Italico in Rome, spoke about the past friction between Federica Pellegrini and Jannik Sinner and their long-distance controversy following the Clostebol case.
“I don’t think Federica took it out on her, there was a doping case involving a swimming guy a few years ago who had a very important stop during his career, so I think simply Federica had wanted to draw attention in quotes to other cases that had a different ending than Sinner’s,” explained the former swimmer.
The current Sky commentator took stock of the Italian swimming: “There are a lot of new names emerging, not only Sara Curtis. Sara has started this super course in America which is going extremely well in my opinion and so now she is called upon to transform the results obtained long pool, however, we have a young team. There are a lot of 2005, 2006 and 2007 kids who are growing up and want to find their own space in the Absolute National Team.”
“Then we always have the big tips on which there is our attention, from Simone Quadarella to Thomas Ceccon, we hope in the recovery of Nicolò Martinenghi who still at the moment is not qualified, however we already have a Simone Cerasuolo who has shown himself to be a great performer, not only in the 50 breaststroke, but also in the 100 breaststroke at the moment.”
“Do the results of other sports inspire swimmers? Guido Meda also said it earlier during the press conference that results from other sports certainly inspire because if he made it I can make it too. So you definitely create this winning mentality that goes from sport to sport, even if then in the end the sports don’t have much contact with each other. The athletes don’t obviously interface or get to train together. But there is this strong change in mentality whereby Italian athletes have become great professionals. They are people beyond all extremely human, there are a few unattainable champions, there are so many figureheads from Federica Brignone in skiing, to Jannik Sinner himself in tennis, who not only help other athletes, but more importantly help so many kids approach sports.”
