Athletics, Trost starts again: ‘Too many pains, I wanted to give up. But now I’m lot’

Where had we left it? On the platform of the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, the same as Gimbo Tamberi’s triumph. Eliminated in qualifying with 1.90. His latest 1.90. Three races would follow that year. Like six o’clock in 2022, without noteworthy results. It’s been 16 months. We find it in Castelporziano, near Ostia and the barracks which are the base for the sports center of its Fiamme Gialle. Alessia Trost, great hope of the high blue – a world title for students and a junior – expressed only partially, now lives there. Even if you are with your family these days, in Pordenone, for the Christmas holidays. In the meantime, sportingly speaking, she has hit rock bottom. Her up to seriously thinking about quitting.

Parable

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“There were mornings – she recalls – when, after training the day before, it took me 10 minutes to get out of bed. And I cried. I suffered from muscle, joint, especially nervous problems. My back has various protrusions, my spine throws tantrums. I didn’t suffer a specific injury, but a very strong general inflammatory state. Last spring I was trying to jump and I didn’t get off the ground. So in June, in agreement with the federation, I decided to pull the plug for a while”. It was at that time that he thought about saying enough. After three years in Ancona with Marco Tamberi and two between Sesto San Giovanni and Como with Roberto Vanzillotta, in autumn 2021 she moved to Berlin. But the attempt, also due to the many ailments, had not been successful. Until three months ago. “Always the Federation – he says – in September offered me a period of rehabilitation at Acquacetosa, in Rome. I resumed calmly followed by Vincenzo De Luca. There was trust in a project that is aimed at 2024. The Fiamme Gialle, led by Gabriele Di Paolo, once that first period was over, they offered me to move in with them. I am followed by a pool of technicians led by Andrea Matarazzo which includes Fabrizio Donato and Manuel Margesin, an expert in high jumps. I train with triple jumpers and astisti, we are a good group. It’s nice to have different points of view and new stimuli. We are a kind of laboratory. I have such a technical baggage that I can manage certain things on my own. When I return to jumping, again in agreement with Fidal, I will be supervised by Giulio Ciotti. But I’m not ahead of the times. The important thing is to no longer feel pain, to regain physical efficiency. It’s an all-in bet: I’m behind, I won’t play indoors. But I plan to reappear in the open race. The choice is precise: I live as a barracks, in the former officers’ quarters, having lunch and dinner at set times. But I accept the challenge.”

Experiences

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The high women’s blue today is identified in Elena Vallortigara, world bronze in charge. “You know it – admits she-she: seeing her on that podium made me feel bad. We faced the same difficulties. I experienced sweet and bitter sensations”. For some months now, Alessia has been a member of the European federation’s athletes commission chaired by the former Swiss 400-year-old Lea Spunger. “There’s politics and business – she says – there’s a lot to do. I don’t know if the experience, interesting for now, will have future implications. Certainly athletes, in the context in which they operate, are underrepresented, despite being at the center of it”. This is also a way to come back.