Alberto Tomba is ironic about the comparison with Jannik Sinner: "Let’s not joke"

At almost 60 years old, Alberto Tomba gave a long interview to Gazzetta dello Sport in which he talked about everything. “I’ve lived in the country since I was a child, I love animals. I got a farmhouse in the hills, I take care of the management, then I come home by walking eight kilometers. I have to keep fit.”

Of today’s champions, Tomba especially looks up to Jannik Sinner and Kimi Antonelli. “Jannik has been a winner for years. He tried skiing and then chose tennis, like living my life in reverse. Jannik mountain tennis player, me city skier.” And on the possibility of a ski challenge, he smiles, “Come on, no kidding. To make it balanced I would have to give him a bit of a head start … and him to me at tennis.”

With Antonelli the relationship is more personal: “He is a guy from my home, from Bologna. We talk often and recently had lunch together at the Riviera. Kimi, with that name, was destined to be a champion. He is now in Mercedes, but he will surely make it to Ferrari someday.”

He closed on Alex Zanardi: “I went to see him before the accident in 2001 and we bonded from there. We talked often, as Bolognese people. What he showed was unique: strength, passion, will. After the accident he said, ‘Wait, I want to try something else,’ and he won four Paralympic golds.” Then the memory of the funeral: “I was moved when Don Marco Pozza, during the homily, told about a meeting of Alex with two boys from the prison in a truck stop. Alex explained to them the five-second theory: in life you can always last five seconds longer, to see if you can still do something. Those boys went home with a different way of thinking.”