Swimmers, athletes, basketball players, tennis players, martial artists: from Ceccon to Vettori, from Jacobs to Ali, there are many Italian athletes who at a certain point choose another country to move on from. Question of structures, methodologies or something else? At the roots of a phenomenon
The latest news is that, in the lane next to his, he will find none other than Léon Marchand, the French winner of four gold medals in Paris 2024: he too has chosen Australia and the coach Dean Boxall, former coach of the Olympic champions Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan, “for two or three months”. Thomas Ceccon will leave on January 10th for Brisbane, on the Gold Coast, “to try to gather as much information as possible, improve his English, take advantage of the heat and try to do something different after 12 years” as well as to “exchange ideas after the obsession with the Olympic gold medal”, as he said in recent months at Gazzetta dello Sport. He will remain there until at least April, to prepare for the long course World Championships scheduled in Singapore between the last week of July and the first of August, and he is not the only swimmer who will train outside Italy in the coming months. Even Alberto Razzetti, three times in the final in Paris (200 medley, 400 medley and 200 butterfly), will move to Australia from 4 January to mid-March to be followed by Boxall and “steal” some secrets from Marchand, the dominator of his specialties . A beautiful friendship was born between the Ligurian and the Frenchman after the World Cup in October. “He proposed this experience to me directly,” explains Razzetti.
