Zanardi, his son Nicolò: “I’ll tell you about Alex who makes coffee and kneads pizza. And he smiled”

“There is something that perhaps they don’t know. A small aspect of the Alex at home. Not the Alex who wins the Paralympics or the Indy World Championships, but the Alex who makes coffee, who kneads the pizza on Saturday evenings, who looks at you and says: listen to me, help me for a moment to ‘shoot’ with the spid because I don’t understand anything.” This was said by Niccolò Zanardi, Alex’s son, who spoke at the end of the funeral ceremony in the Basilica of Santa Giustina in Padua. Niccolò spoke of a father far from the public image of the champion: a man who faced the small daily things with a smile, from the glasses that looked like telescopes to the telephone held five meters from his face. “When I saw him making coffee or kneading pizza, always with a smile, I understood something that he had always said – he continued – that it is not necessary to think about big challenges to find joy. It starts from the little things”. The son then drew the moral from that silent lesson: “You don’t need to be Alex Zanardi to have a wonderful life. Anyone can have it”, concluded Niccolò.