Festival dello Sport, Sara Simeoni: “Moscow was golden, but Los Angeles …”

Sara Simeoni jumps for gold in Moscow 1980 on the big screen behind her. And the audience in the hall of the Palazzo della Regione applauds, as if it were happening now. 42 years have passed, but the excitement for Sara overcoming the high jump bar remains the same and she wins those Olympics. “I’m happy with me” she says seeing her again, with a hint of pride, while the audience pays her the applause due to a legend.

MOSCOW AND LOS ANGELES

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Sara remembers with the lightness that made her popular even on TV her key year, 1978, that of the double world record. “She didn’t change me, but the people around me she-remembers her-her. I only understood when I stopped the value of that 2.01. The following year, however, I wasted it ”. She then she jumps up to Moscow 1980, until that Olympic gold she won without being able to hear the national anthem on the podium. “But they knew I was Italian!”. Four years later, in Los Angeles, Simeoni is the standard-bearer. “It was a sort of award trip, because I had tendon problems – she remembers – she. I wanted to qualify for the final, to say I’m there. Then I don’t know what happened: a few days before my tendon had swollen, I couldn’t walk. An American therapist we had met had proposed a therapy: he would throw me into the ice and then do the ultrasounds. If they had told me earlier that I was going to win silver I would not have believed it. I felt miraculous, but after that I couldn’t take it anymore. Moscow was beautiful for the gold, but this was beautiful and beautiful ”.

MUNICH 1972

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One of the most touching moments is when Sara Simeoni remembers the experience in Munich 1972, her first Olympics. “The Games have always had a particular meaning for me – she says – she. I was struck by the world inside the Olympic Village, a country within a city. You met athletes from all over the world and they were all smiling. It is exceptional. In the race I finished 6th with 1.85, 3 centimeters from the podium. At that moment I realized that I could do it, also because for the first time I had seen my opponents well and understood that I was not training like them, that I could improve. The day after the race I wake up and everything had changed in the Village: those smiling faces and that happy atmosphere had become sad and there was a dead silence. The Israelis were very close to us. We didn’t notice anything, but it was a tragic situation. And all that beauty I had seen was suddenly ruined ”.