[Applause]
it ‘s 5:30 in the morning
London 12 August 2012
I turn off the alarm even if that night
I did not really sleep much
because in an hour there is a coach that
it will take me to play the game more
important in my career
the match that is worth a medal
Olympic now needs a premise like
you sensed when I entered the
stage I was not a great athlete
that he became a coach of
volleyball that a little stereotype
classic of the sports world me
I would like to tell you how some do
my colleague I was very good has a lot
talent then I got hurt and I have
had to start training
no I was healthy like a fish simply
I did not have enough talent for
become an athlete what I would be
liked very much matia has you
also told about my ride that is
I’ve been around for a while
really started to train in
this city that my city in a
oratory of this city of a bordeaux
and siam borgo san paolo I have begun
from there a path that has passed
through five different championships
ten cities different three nations
italy la greece the finland i am
parts of the world that made me
become what I have become
I thought a little about these things
morning at 5 and a half
knowing that that bus would leave
an hour later to take me to the escort
the place is the place where our team
he would play that game
stocks is one of those architectures
resistant that is those architectures that
they have been able to change over the course
of history their intended use
think that at the end of the nineteenth century
there was the European headquarters of the buffalo
bills wild west show
think how many dreams have passed by
there then inside that structure
designed especially for large events
music in 1973 david bowie did a
concert that signed the historical record of
people who had come to attend
an indoor rock concert in 1992 a
new building
just to be consistent with this
place of production of dreams came
inaugurated by a princess lady diana
and then on the occasion of the thirtieth
edition of the 2012 London Olympic Games
that place had been chosen to be
the place where they would be disputed
to volleyball matches
in short, that was on that day
theater of my dreams
unfortunately it was very far away was
very far from where we were we were at
more than an hour’s journey in conditions
normal
but that day just to complicate
some things
there were two facts the first one was
the last day of the Olympic Games the
day when you run the marathon and the
marathon that day passed indeed
he arrived in the center of London, therefore
he was completely paralyzed
the second fact was that ours
game had a radio beginning a bit
particular the 8 and 30 in the morning hour the
volleyball is a sport of strength
explosive
it’s not a whim it’s not a question of
training or habit is a lot
difficult to be performing
at that time of the morning it is a fact
biological in a nutshell none of the
my athletes had never played one
game that began at that time
it was all completely new they were one
situation a completely feeling
unknown
it was all wonderfully in it
none of our protocols can be coached
all those things that in sport
they do great with great precision
attention to details
It seemed to be useful that day
none
or maybe a yes because on that bus
that would take me to the god theater
my dreams
I begin to realize that
that was happening to me sitting there with
my bag with breakfast inside
a sandwich and a fruit juice
as well as school trips
that feeling was very close it was
much closer to what I had
done twenty-five years earlier when in
I was training these kids in this city
I had to calculate the i
times of the displacements find the
just pizzeria to get to eat
in short, so that it was neither too much
soon or too late compared to
game
paradoxically it was all extraordinary
from what I had done in the
last years of my series career
a in to the Europeans and world in the world
league and equally paradoxically
that long ride that I from that oratory
I had started he was bringing me back
at its beginning now naturally thanks
to the diligence of the local organizers
we arrived at the playing field with a
crazy advance now
close your eyes for a moment
to be an athlete who must go in
field to play for a medal
Olympic
try to think about looking at the
dressing room ceiling having to
wait more than an hour to start the
race
can you imagine the tension and the
nervousness that nervous energy yes
burn and yet you know that soon there
it will damn good luck my luck
that of perceiving those sensations
that collective mood then
I called the team around me and did
a speech of a few words
he said I want to tell you a story
I want to tell you the story of a
high jumper an athlete like you that
he had the same dream place for all
his life as a child win one
Olympic medal
imagine that athlete has
together with his coaching staff
studied meticulously
conditions in which it will have to compete
on 12 August 2012 in London
so he knows he has studied and is aware
that on 12 August in London normally there
it’s 24 degrees
there is 70 percent of rate
humidity
there is a slight breeze of 45 knots
it blows from the south east and in favor of run-up
and he has recreated those conditions and he is there
trained in those conditions
every single day in the last four
years is perfect it feels ready
he feels unbeatable then he arrives at 12
August of 2012
and when that athlete enters the track
of athletics of the Olympic stadium
it happens that it rains it’s cold
the slippery platform is a strong wind
what are the two choices
the medal will still be assigned to
that day he will win who will be more
agile and this concept of agility and a
concept of course that to do with
the physicality that sportsmen need
but it is also a concept a lot
intellectual and a kind of lightness
of ability to move in a manner
effective to interpret some
detail and to put together the
pieces that at that moment seem
break up in front of two hands
I said I am sure you are
aware that everything you have
done until today has been important
because if you would not have had
that attention detail that care
of the particular that research of the
protocol today you would not be seated
in this locker room there would be someone
your place
But today you must get rid of
everything you brought up to
here you have to take off this backpack that is
too heavy and that today will not serve
on the contrary, this will be an obstacle
little speech saying a lot of thing
simple but I really felt in
that moment and simply said I
I want you to know that I am
damn proud to be here
with each of you today under this
rain
hunting is literally the athletes from the
locker room
I asked them to go for breakfast
out imagine the scene with the
security guards chasing each other
the athletes who were going to look for
we took a coffee to meet up
half an hour later in the same locker room
where I did not talk almost anymore alone
a gesture hanging in that locker room
a blue shirt
the shirt from the shirt number 16 was the
mesh of vigor bovolenta an athlete who
he had dressed that shirt 197 times
up to the Beijing Olympic Games and that
five months before that match was
tragically disappeared due to a problem
cardiac playing volleyball hanging
that shirt with the others and he said
simply remember simply
of the importance of not leaving things
unspoken or not made and saying that in
some way in some form that
day we could have counted on one
extra player I certainly would not have
Imagined that four years later I would be
He was called to tell about these
vicissitudes a ted
but I believe at that moment to have
thought exactly this must be the
place this must be the place must
to be where I place where I am
we will make our dreams come true
even if completely different from that
that we would have expected
It is up to us to make it such today it came to me
mind the place where our dreams come from
the Italian forum had begun
marble stadium rome from there the
Olympic delegation moves
symbolically to go and receive the
Olympic flag by the president of the
republic and I thought of that place with a
reference to its own lightness
that of italo calvino in the lessons
American because also the Italian forum
it is a place that has been able to transform
resoundingly the destination for the
what had been thought because that
place had been thought to celebrate the
heaviness and the horror of apology
fascist had been thought to divide
the world
and he had been able to transform himself
hosting in 1960 perhaps the most
beautiful of the Olympic Games that of Rome
that of abebe bikila of his race
slight barefoot
the marathon won under the arch of
costantino the games of cassius clay i
Welcome to the games of uil
but rudolf games of a boy
Turin that will marudo watched with
tenderness
it was called livio berruti and won the 200
meters with a wonderful image
romantic that of a flight of doves
that accompanied his curve first
of the finishing right which
emphasized that lightness that
he had also transformed that born place
for a completely different goal
born to divide the world into a place
where the world found its day
most beautiful synthesis I hardly remember
nothing
of the match that has assigned us the
medal I remember the tension and
difficulties to overcome the sense of doing
part of something big memories that
but it was clear to us all
a feeling we never even think about
for a moment we would not have won
that game I thought about so many times
what had happened
I remember the last point that marked
the end of that path and I remember that
after that last point on a podium
Olympic that reappeared that shirt
we had learned in the strippers with a
gesture of an extraordinary beauty that
he went around the world
and that is still my medal
because I do not know if you know big
cruelty to the Olympic games
the medal to the coaches does not give it
the medal but they are the athletes
[Applause]
shortly after a short while later, he retreated via calvino
looking at my athletes on the podium one
feeling that they tell you so many
athletes a kind of passage
schizophrenic between absolute joy and
melancholy are smiles that turn off
eyes that lower and as he said
Calvino kicks not the melancholy that
sadness that becomes light and as if
there on the podium to discover the place
that journey that brought you up
there it is finished and that island of utopia
that is sought for so many years
dissolve under your feet immediately
as soon as you have taken the first step
above
I also remember the evening after that
medal
I was walking in the inside of the
olympic village on the last day of
games repeating myself obsessively
that dream that I had as a child
it had been possible to reach me
he showed that there are no dreams
impossible and I repeated this thing
imagining and feeling that I had in it
that moment a single wish is a good one
idea to be rio
four years later at that time
I began to sketch a new one
journey to a new island of utopia
I thought something of the kind rio must be
the place
But I did not arrive there
I arrived because I stopped one
month before qualifications for those
olympic games resigning mine
resignation on 29 July 2015
in relation to a fact that I do not want
telling why it is not important is
important in that fact he had a lot to
dealing with respect for people
of values which, in my opinion, do not
they were not and never will be
negotiable I do not want to play
the hero
if you ask me for ste
you would do it again I could not answer
that choice gave me pain
immense gigantic and look to the
television eight athletes who with me on
12 present at the end played a final
Olympic is a feeling that
you will hardly be able to describe
so I do not even want to try
warn you of the place
it does not exist or at least does not exist for
how much you strive to define them
details do not exist as you think
the island that does not exist is not there
the place is a journey
and then the most beautiful thing is that every
our journey may be the most
long possible full of riches of
people to meet in the journey on
street full of places to be
contaminate just like it happens in the
most famous journey of the history of the
literature that of Ulysses is in the
fifth book of the said at a time in
which ulisse is on the island of the nymph
calypso the most beautiful woman in the world
that promised immortality
if he stays there with her, tell me now
you
the most beautiful woman in the world
of immortality are two placed in
quite significant and yet
calypso finds ulisse sitting on the
beach that looks to the sea with the
eyes and striped with tears
for this desire for this
longing to return to his island the
longing nostalgia is a motor
from the inexhaustible strength
be aware that there will always be one
place to which we desire
come back but that every time there
we will arrive
there will be another one
of which we will miss
there is a poem that tells about that
extraordinary journey that however is also
a marvelous and poignant metaphor
on the meaning of life
the inscription costantino scala fis in 1911
and it is called itaca
[Music]
when you travel to it
you have to wish the road is long
certain and in adventures inexperience
lestrigons and the cyclops or the fury of
neptune not to fear it will not be this one
kind of meetings
if you think it’s a feeling high
firm guide your spirit of your body
ciclopi and lestrigoni walnut art nenè
the angry neptune will run if not there
bring within himself the soul tips of puts
I wish to wish you the way
long that summer morning are many
when in the ports finally and with that
joy you will touch earth tool for the first one
time in the Phoenician emporiums lingers and
buy mother beads ebony corals amber
and all goods are also perfumes
penetrating of all sorts plus perfumes
intoxicating you can go to many cities
Egyptian
learn a quantity of things from the learned
you must always have itatch in mind
reach it is your thought
constant
however do not rush the trip ago
that lasts a long time for years and that from
old put foot on the island to be rich
of the treasures accumulated on the street without
expect riches from the internet
itaca has given you the nice trip without you
you would never have entered the road
what else do you expect and if you find it
poor not for this itaca will have you
disappointed now wise with all the
your experience already on you will have
understood what unity wants
mean whatever yours is
itaca
good trip
[Applause]
”
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