Sample on TV: athletes who have become sports commentators

“ORddio, the subjunctive ran away. “However strange, it was one of the many thoughts, on 11 August, of Rachele Sangiuliano, former volleyball player, world champion in 2002106 appearances with the blue shirt between 2001 and 2003. The doubt about consecutio temporumthe concordance of the times, it came to her While he cheered at the Paris Olympics after the memorable victory of women’s volleyball led by Julio Velasco3-0 in the final against the USA.

“I was so excited, while leaving the location to go and embrace the blue, that I wondered if I hadn’t made a mistake in the excitement of the moment,” he confesses. Obviously it didn’t happen. Sangiuliano, celebrated in the Hall of Fame of Italian Volleyball in 2022, He left agonism in 2012 and went on to the TV commentator career. It is now one of the faces of Sky Sport for women’s volleyball.

Champions, from medals … to the screen

Not only coach, manager or coaching, as usually happens. Numerous champions, concluded their sports career, choose to embark on the career of television commentators. From Fiona May to Francesca Piccinini, from Federica Pennetta to Marta Pagnini, from Valentina Vezzali to Bebe Vio and Margherita Granbassi, just to name a few, including the former screenwriter Elisa di Francisca After, despite himself, in the controversies during the Paris 2024 Olympics. Casus Belli, a severe comment, as he is in his competitive style, towards the swimmer Benedetta Pilato Finished fourth in the final of the 100 meters frog, to a single cent of second from the bronze, and became a symbol thanks to happiness, and the reaction, with which he welcomed the defeat.

Record champions and commentators

Among them, some passed the examination as a journalist, like the legendary (and pioneer) Lea Pelici, who disappeared in 2024, became the first chroniser woman in Italian television in 1976 And before still 27 times Italian champion in her beloved tennis, called the “divine” (like Federica Pellegrini, she herself among the most requested characters from TV) for her eccentric and feminine looks on the pitch.

Others, like Katia Serra, for example, former midfielder of the women’s national football team (25 appearances), they made history also recently. The former footballer was the First woman to comment on a male European in Rai (Euro 2020). Competent, sober and very attentive to gender language in sport (“must be said” footballer “and not” footballer “”), for seventeen years among the AIC councilors, the association of players, since then it has become a mascot for the finals. And it is thanks to you too if today the football players have been the status of professionals since 2022. “I feel my professional commitment strong because, in tennis and volleyball, for example, there are recognizable champions, while in football our road is all uphill, we must dribble in a very male environment”.

Flavia Pennetta, between emotions and technique

On why you end up, however, to be Technical commentators behind the small screenit is intuitive: we respond to a request for the newspapers, always looking for experts. Then, however, it often becomes a choice of field. As happened to the tennis player Flavia Pennetta, among the strongest Italian players ever, winner of the US Open 2015, and now Sky Sport commentator. «After the retreat, in 2015, I had tried this path and I immediately liked, before leaving it to deal with the family (she has three children from her husband, the tennis player Fabio Fognini, all three with the initial” F “). When I resumed I realized that it was the right time and the “marriage” with the head worked. At the beginning I was too emotional, I let myself be involved, now I am more objective. But I’m not a reporter, let’s be clear. When I am in the studio, for example with Stefano Meloccaro, in the Sky Tennis Club program, I ask him and his colleagues how to behave. I follow their directives ».

Yet, speaking of emotion, his tears to the international tennis, in Rome, last May 8, did not go unnoticed in front of the defeat in two sets of Fognini, a former number nine in the world, with the English Jacob Fearnley. A matter of heart? «Of course, but it is also the fault of the colleagues in the studio. They told me: be less technical and more wife. So I moved»Jokes. Meanwhile, he bets Jasmine Paolini on the champion (“the year waiting for her will be full of reconfirmation and has just shown it”) and confesses that the children comment on her looks on TV (“mom you really beautiful”), but that above all she has lost her voice only for Janannik Sinner, received in mid -May from the “tennis player” Leo XIV. “Last year, every victory made me crack, I screamed with joy.”

Francesca Piccinini, teamwork

Francesca Piccinini, on the other hand, who left volleyball at 42, In 2022, world champion in 2002 and close to entering the international hall of Fame, he also talks about the irresistible desire, after all, to remain “on the pitch”.

“You spend so much time of life to train that it is unsettling to take care of other things immediatelythen I recently retired. I evaluated some proposals, also from the world of entertainment (he participated in Beijing Express 2024 paired with Kristian Ghedina, editor’s note), but then the idea of ​​following the chronicles from the championship (recently commented on the Female Campons League in Istanbul, won by Conegliano), was irresistible. At the beginning (he started working for Sky Sport already in the 2021-2022 season, editor’s note), I felt a fish out of the water, but plan, slowly I entered the adrenaline atmosphere of the direct and I identified myself with the new role. In short, I continue to “crush”, and the beautiful thing is that the girls still see me like one of them, they trust me ».

Meanwhile, it is also general manager of the Chorus Volley Bergamo Academy and Volley Bergamo 1991, a new pole for women’s youth volleyball involving athletes from the under 12 categories to the Under 18.

Rachele Sangiuliano, from volleyball to football

«I am convinced, however, that our contribution is not only technical. Thanks to agricultural, we are able to work in a team and we are very competitive. I think it is an important added value. As far as I am concerned, I admit that I am a real “dry”, but for good »he claims Rachele Sangiuliano who, in his spare time, plays in Padel with his boyfriend, the DJ Ringo.

Recently, from Volleyball, the former champion, on the “piece” with Sky Sport and other newspapers such as Eurosport since 2015, has been “promoted” and Fabio Tavelli also passed on to football where he joined in The Casa dello Sport Monday Night which deals with the pre and post-partitis. “And to think that twenty years ago I read La Gazzetta dello Sport From the last page because we girls ended up mentioned in a pierce. Today we are in the first. I am proud of it, we were fabulous inside and off the pitch, we made history »reflects.

Marta Pagnini, an important “mission”

Marta Pagnini, former blue butterfly captain of the rhythmictwice world gold, bronze in London 2012 and captain in Rio 2016, sees His work as a television commentator almost like a mission. «My goal is to make our discipline known to an ever wider audience. Unlike other sports, ours is a little more complex, it must be explained well. I also want to make people understand how much dedication it takes: not everyone imagines that, behind those exercises, there are eight daily hours of hard work in the gyms ».

An important task, especially now that, every day, for some time, New poisons emerge on the training of butterflies between discipline and rigor. The former athlete, also activates today in Organizing Committee of the Milan-Cortina 2026 winter Olympics, it was in Tokyo 2020 For Rai and Neo elected to the Coni National Council, in the middle of Covid (“The silence was spectral, the sport feeds on the cheering of the spectators, we were all with the masks”), while commented the Paris Olympics last year for Discovery+. Now he analyzes the races for La7, almost always paired with the journalist Ilaria Brugnotti.

“I began by chance on the YouTube channel of the Italian Gymnastics Federation driven by Davide Ciarallli, head of the FGI press office, because at the time very little television went on television. And then… I also got a refreshing taste from the spectators’ appreciation comments». The former captain of the blue butterflies withdrew in 2016, He took the patent of international judge and participated in the Olympic Youth Games in Buenos Aires 2018before also obtaining the international coach patent in 2019. She also has a record: at the London Olympics, in 2012, she was the youngest athlete of her team.

Katia Serra on TV, pride and prejudice

In his long career, which lasted 24 years, from 1986 to 2010, the former footballer Katia Serra won a Scudetto, three Italian Cups, an Italian Super Cup and an Italy Women’s Cup. He told his path in the Memoir A life offside. Chronicles from the world that everyone thinks they know (Fabbri). The former midfielder says he had to fight every day to reach goals that seemed not only impossible but even unthinkable.

«At the time, not now, we had to cross storms to make us assert: From the referees who infamous us in the field, to the trips at night on the ferries because there was not even the money to do it adequatelyup to training in Coverciano, where the secondary fields gave us, not the main one. Our trade union battles led to incredible evolution. I studied a lot, I took numerous licenses and I also asserted it on television».

Yes, because another rock faced by Serra was prejudice to women who tell football on television. “I also felt like” returning to the kitchen “” confesses the commentator who has the contract expiring in June with the typical anxiety of those who live the precariousness of the renewal. But the professionalism was suddenly rewarded in 2020 in a blatant way. “In the famous final of Wembley, Italy – England, for a series of flat rate of other colleagues, I found myself commenting on the game. They were at the time to choose others, instead they called me. When the first three letters of my name were written on Google, I came before celebrities like Kate Middleton, “he underlines with pride. Effectively…

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