Paternoster, fear to the European: falls and hits his head

A great fear before the relief. There is nothing serious about Letizia Paternoster, who last night was hunting for the European title on the elimination track (after the 2021 world championship in Roubaix) and instead ended up at the Bogenhausen clinic in Munich. Halfway through the race, the 23-year-old from thirty, who was the protagonist of the silver in the quartet on Friday, was tight in the group and was unbalanced by the Polish Patrycja Lorkowska: Letizia had the worst at 50 per hour. The cameras never framed her during the rescue (trial suspended, then the success of the Belgian Kopecky): she was motionless, pushed by the impact against the glass barrier. Her body ripped, four people engaged for 15 ‘to stabilize her.

Panic

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For her, reports the Italian doctor Antonio Angelucci, “mild emotional trauma, non-displaced fracture of the right clavicle in three points, complete amnesia of the incident”. She spent the night in the clinic, today she will have to decide where to perform the surgery for the collarbone. Frost had fallen in the system mounted in a pavilion of the Fair, sold out (1,500 spectators). On the side of the track was Paul, Letizia’s father. “She was confused, she asked where she was. But she recognized me, and asked what races awaited her …”: it was the Azzurri coach Villa who was the first to talk about the great fear for Letizia, who in the moments after the crash did not he remembered more of being at the Europeans, he thought he was at the Olympics.

Other falls

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Yesterday was not his first crash on the track. December 2018, World Cup in Berlin: in the American, she is mowed down by an athlete from Hong Kong. She flies away, lands on her right side, stands still. She recovers, she is confused, her tests show a rib contusion. Or the accident in the Roubaix velodrome in 2019 in training: fall, one of her pedals pierces the floor, splinters of wood go into her back. So the story of the competitive spirit ended at the bottom, with yesterday’s 4 medals for Italy. Silver by Davide Plebani and bronze by Manlio Moro in the individual pursuit, bronze by Vittoria Guazzini (same specialty, Italian record in 3’24 “503), bronze by Miriam Vece in the 500 meters.