Larissa Iapichino: “I would like to walk on the catwalk”

There’s time for the question about the anger and outburst of the World Cup (“I’m in shock, I live in a nightmare”) because, having just left the studio for the fashion shooting in these pages, Larissa Iapichino is so proud of her morning as a model that it seems bad to break the spell.

“I would like to design my own collection”. You said it in the past to Sportweek. After today then…

“I confirm, I would exploit my creative side. I have always liked fashion, it is a passion that my mother (the former long jump world champion, Fiona May; ed.) passed on to me. And then, thinking about the future, I don’t want to close any doors to myself”.

“Haute couture fascinates me, but I don’t have the skills, so I would stay in my field, to bring something different to the world of sport, where you always see the same things…”.

Would you design your own racing uniform?

“I actually made a couple of suggestions and they were accepted. One for the particular design of the collar and the other for the back, which is practically entirely open. In general I would aim for something very elegant but simple, with impactful colors but combined in a harmonious way. A combo that I like is gold and white.”

Oh well, gold… It’s okay for an athlete. But when you were little, did your mother choose your clothes or did you make them yourself?

“I was quite early in telling her: let’s go shopping. I wanted to experiment. There was also the period of two different shoes or strange hairstyles. She let me do it. “If you like it, I like it.” And what a laugh when I opened her wardrobe! I fished out the heels and went around with these two boats, it was a lot of fun.”

You were talking about strange hairstyles. Type?

“Like Pucca, the little girl from the Japanese cartoon who had two small buns on her head. I fell in love with her. And my mother was my hairdresser. Today in the competition I have to limit myself, otherwise the hair goes left and right, I’m aiming for ballerina-style hairstyles.”

Have you ever been to a fashion show?

“Never, but twice, at Pitti Bimbo, then at my house, in Florence, as a child I showed for brands. Fun experience, but then my parents understood that it wasn’t for me, I enjoyed spending the afternoons with friends more.”

“Oh God, maybe I’m too short…”.

“Anyway, yes, the idea would really excite me. I like to experiment, in short, let’s see if we can fit everything into my commitments.”

Speaking about the gesture of jumping, however: when you were little, did it already have an important role in your life?

“Yes, and also in that of the… furniture maker”.

“I liked doing somersaults, at the time practicing artistic gymnastics it was all about leaps, cartwheels, flips. It’s a shame that I had chosen my mother’s bed as the platform. Boom, boom, boom. I kept trying acrobatics, sometimes risking hurting myself. By jumping, I broke that bed.”

So when, again in Sportweek, you said that you got into a lot of trouble as a child, we’ll include this too. Can you tell us another one?

“Well, the one about the slip. My sister Anastasia and I were chasing each other. She was in front and I followed her in the corridor. I had non-slip socks on my feet. You’ve already understood, right…? I’m a long way in, I crash into the door after which I knew she would be there. Paf! Glass of the door in a thousand pieces. ‘Larissa!’, I still hear my mother’s scream. Luckily Anastasia had ducked out of the way. time”.

Here it is, mother. British of Jamaican blood. Do you have anything Jamaican?

“Aside from my predisposition for athletics, I would say my tranquility, even if sometimes I can appear anxious. I am someone who wants to be calm, calm, enjoy life, and I certainly got this from that part of the family.”

Are Larissa on the stage and Larissa in everyday life two people the same or different?

“There’s a bit of Mister Hyde. On the stage I’m different, I’m very bad, all nerves, in everyday life I couldn’t do it, I’d quickly get tired of being like that. Off the stage I would define myself as feisty, determined at most, but in general I’m sweet. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it because I’m a very closed person, not immediately expansive.”

Before (re)talking about the disappointment of the World Cup in Tokyo, how does Larissa vent in moments like those of the World Cup?

“In the long run, I prefer going for a walk, going out to dinner is something I love.”

“Here the matter becomes complicated, in the sense that there can be screaming and crying dictated by nervousness. The point is that, listen, it makes me nervous to be nervous and therefore I feel like crying, understand? And in any case I keep outbursts of this type to myself, there’s no way I’m going to be seen screaming.”

And when and after how long do you realize you’ve done something great on the stage?

“In recent years, I realize it immediately, but the next day I’m already thinking about the next challenge. Not that I don’t remain happy (even for a long time) for a great satisfaction, but then I immediately set myself for the next goal, in my head I know very well that everything is cancelled.”

You’ve worked with a mental coach. Is reasoning like this also the result of your work?

“It’s a bit of a thing for me. It was like this at school too: for example, if I got a 9 in a class test, even though I knew how much I had worked hard for it, I thought: the school year is long, the average must be maintained, I have to work the same way for the next one.”

After high school you enrolled in law school. What lawyer Larissa should we expect?

“At first I wanted to be a lawyer like my uncle Alex, but after entering his field by taking the Commercial Law exam I thought: ok, thanks, I did it, but it’s not for me”.

“I don’t yet know what I want to specialize in, but I certainly want to be a professional ready to put my client in the best possible conditions. I’m especially fascinated by the research part, that is, finding the quibble, finding the situation on which to then debate.”

But did you want to be a lawyer when you were little?

“At 4 years old, yes. And even the astronaut, like many other children, I was fascinated by the idea of ​​going into space, I was inspired by encyclopedias, by the stars. I was (and am) a dreamer. Just think, at a certain point, later, I would have liked to become the president of the United States”.

Too bad you’re not American and therefore prevented from doing so… But here we are in Tokyo. Missed qualification, strong words, the shock, the nightmare. Today, colder, what do you think of what happened?

“That my relationship with defeat has changed radically and is much more mature. Nobody likes a match like that, after a beautiful year and after giving everything for that goal, you get there and it goes badly: it’s normal to say similar words, in the heat of the moment. But by the evening, things had already changed.”

“Away from the stadium, I took some time for myself and started saying: “What can I do now? Nothing”. It’s gone. So what can I extrapolate from this negative experience? Something that turns into a positive. Dragging myself into the memory of that race would have just weighed me down.”

Attitude of a mature person.

“Did someone die?, I said to myself. No. And then I realized that defeats usually teach more than victories, so ok, it happened and I’m moving on. Today I can say that I’m happy with how I reacted. There will still be setbacks, but you always have to be good at not losing your guiding star.”

From one nightmare to another: is there a recurring bad dream set in the jump?

“Yes, but more than the classic one of arriving late to a race (a couple of times it actually happened to me), there is that of being in the right place, of already seeing the name Iapichino on the electronic scoreboard and yet having forgotten my shoes, I look for them, I look for them but I can’t find them. Panic.”

Larissa, is there a phrase that inspires you more than others?

“Of course: the best is yet to come.”