Paltrinieri wins gold in the 1500m at the short course swimming world championships in Australia!

Super Greg again. Marvel in Australia, at the World Championships in Melbourne in short course: the 1500m are his, strong in 14’16″88 ahead of the French Damien Joly (trained by his former coach Stefano Morini in Livorno), silver in 14’19″62, and to the Norwegian Henrik Christiansen, bronze in 14’24”08. Fourth is the Japanese Takeda in 14’25”95. An always attacking race for the policeman from Carpi, who at 28 is always hungry to win and attack the water, perhaps more motivated than ever. Fabrizio Antonelli’s pupil does a sort of monologue and only in the last part do the other two medalists try to approach him. They try in vain to press him: Greg knows how to manage these phases and knows how to respond, despite the very heavy effort in 60 tanks conducted at full throttle. The king has confirmed himself: in the long course and in the short course, the first blue in history to make a world championship encore. “I’m back in the short course too! It has been a long time since I won even in this format”.

What a story

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Gregorio is the hero of two worlds, world champion in swimming and cross-country skiing, he has won gold on all continents, from the Olympic one in Brazil in 2016 to the world titles in Europe. Australia is his second home, as he defines it and he was particularly keen to do well in Melbourne, where he was twice for long periods of training between 2017 and 2018. Greg is back from an extraordinary year, full of medals with at least one gold in all specialties: from 800 to 10 km. He had won this title in 2014 in Doha, he had been the world record holder in 14’08″06 in 2015 when at the European Championships in Israel he had ousted the other Australian legend Grant Hackett, only to lose him a year ago to the German Florian Wellbrock in Abu Dhabi ( for Greg only a fourth place). But Greg recovered everything, like after the Tokyo Games, where he had arrived under the effects of mononucleosis which hadn’t prevented him from winning the silver in the 800m and the bronze in the cross country.

Ten years at the top

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The king of Carpi has been collecting medals since 2012: the first time was a European gold in Debrecen of course in the much loved 1500. Then he was able to be Olympic, world and continental champion at the same time.