QThis time it was different. Maybe because the Olympics they were at our house. Or because we had our fill of medals. Or because we needed stories, victories, loyalty and fair play. Everything seemed above our expectations. I didn’t expect the torchbearers to be so enthusiastic (the friend who burst into tears: “Finally an image of peace”), that my fellow citizens were so worried about our good name (“Did we make a good impression?”), that the Olympic pins became prized commodities of exchange.
That the tickets were unfortunately so expensive, but that many people tried and then everyone was satisfied: “You can see better on television” (ah, the fox and the grapes…). That curling and Big Air freestyle would fill our discussions, that the uniforms were so beautiful and that the athletes would win us over in a crescendo of enthusiasm.
I didn’t expect that my heart would explode in my chest at the notes of the national anthem but I hoped, without saying it, that our boys – and our girls in particular – would make us proud. Young men of steel like we know many of them, with clear eyes and the temper of precious metal, like the medals they have won. Who have spent their green years doing and redoing, repeating, insisting, for a fraction of a second less, a centimeter more of extension, between pain, risks, exhausting training, forced rest, trips, physiotherapists, exercises, mental coaches and superstitious rituals. Because even the young body breaks, gets damaged, tears; but it also repairs itselfif you are obsessed with making it and your head is on your side.
Danda Santini, director of “iO Donna”. (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert)
We became emotional, abandoned to the broad smiles of the winners, to the tears of those who didn’t make itto the enthusiasm of the teams, to the wonder of the bodies that flex, pump, jump and defy gravity to reach a moment of glory. We breathed deeply of the crystalline mountain air, we delighted in the blue reflections of the ice, we detoxed in the astonished whiteness of our Alps. We had fun.
The news has slipped away from us, the wars, the constitutional reforms, the suffering planet, everything has been set aside as an annoying background noise. We reconnected with ourselves and with our being a people. Which is not celebrated, but when it does it surprises us. When we hug, no one hugs more warmly than us. When a “Hello mum” comes out in front of the camera, well, there’s no equal.
Why don’t we have these Olympics more often? (illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini)
That mixture of low head and imagination, which is often the hallmark of our being Italian, knows how to win in its own way. With suffering first, but then contagious joy. Even on those who are used to speaking loudly, it is bigger and stronger, boasts and threatens. But arrogance doesn’t win the Olympics. This is why we love them.
And now that we already miss the evening appointment with the medal table and figure skating, while we wait for you Paralympics of March (6-15) at the end of a month of heart-pounding and obstinacy, we can’t help but ask ourselves: why don’t we have these Olympics more often?
