For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, in Paris, in 2024, the same number of female athletes will participate as men. July 26 of this year is a date not to be forgotten. The deputy director of Rai Sport explains the reasons, Marco Lollobrigida with his book ‘Rose gold. The women who brought Italy to the top of the Olympic podium published by Rai Libri
with the preface by the president of CONI Giovanni Malagò. In her book Lollobrigida has collected the Stories, with a capital ‘S’, of all those of the women who have distinguished themselves in the various sports and Olympic disciplines and who have contributed to the construction of a page of modernity and justice in our country.
Starting from Ondina Valla, Olympic champion in the 80 meter hurdles and the first Italian to win a gold medal in Berlin in 1936, until reaching Federica Pellegrini, the ‘Divine’ for fans, who made everyone dream with his gold in the 200-meter freestyle in Beijing in 2008. The author has collected the testimonies of these women and reconstructed their personal stories, from childhood up to the great goals, to motherhood, to the political choices of each of them. Passion and determination: these are the feelings that alternate in a collection of small choral novels that trace the lines of a common path. Lollobrigida has stepped aside giving voice to the lives of these athletes without expressing judgments, opinions, views, but only by telling the facts. One of the aspects on which he has focused is that of sexual orientation, which proves to be a problem when attention, almost always only with regard to women, falls on private life and not on competitive abilities.
He knows it well Antonella Bellutti, to name one. Hurdler, track runner and bobsledderBellutti won two gold medals in cycling, first in Atlanta in 1996 and then in Sydney in 2000. In fact, the athlete told the deputy director of Rai Sport that she felt “discriminated against for many things: because I was a woman, gay, vegan. There are those who discriminate against an elderly person, an overweight person. At a certain point the fact that I was vegan made more of a stir! So I made peace with this way of thinking, after all you only change companions of discrimination. It was a great liberation because I understood that this is how life goes and I live it at peace with myself.”
But the prejudice against sports considered mostly male has also generated ‘some’ difficulties. He can well say it Paola Pezzo who, riding her mountain bike, opened the doors to the female universe of a completely male sporteven trivially (but not too much) starting from clothing: “There were few women – we read in ‘Rose Gold’ -. It was a chauvinistic sport, made for men. Even the clothing was for men with those overalls that were good for men, so I invented a women’s line that didn’t make you lose femininity, with the famous neckline. Sequined dresses, gold, silver, colored overalls. Not only that: I cut the entire saddle to make it more comfortable for us women. And now I’m like that for men too”.
But not only discrimination and the search for equality; the Olympics can also be for athletes pages of history that are intertwined with politics and violence, as he said Antonella Ragno, ‘Fencing Lady’ who won gold in Munich 1972 shortly before the Munich massacre, an Olympics that went down in history for the Palestinian attack on some Jewish athletes. “The Games should have stopped there – explained Antonella Ragno -, the Olympic spirit had been sunk. There was no point in competing afterwards. We saw those boys who were walking with us until the day before die. The “ceasefire” that has always existed during the Games was not even respected”. Because they are never just Games, but also so much more.
The Olympic Games, in addition to confirming winners and satisfying the immense personal satisfaction of athletes after four years of very hard training, are above all a symbol. They are a political symbol, when news events happen that stain their honor. And they become a cultural and social symbol when a woman wins four months after pregnancy. As it happened to Valentina Vezzali, the Italian queen of Foil, three-time Olympic gold medalist, who told Marco Lollobrigida: “Others shouldn’t be the ones to decide whether you can go back to competitive activity (after maternity leave, ed.); despite thirty kilos gained during pregnancy, despite my teacher having been ill […] I have shown that after four months you can win again. I am proud of my tenacity: thanks to me, a rule was inserted that freezes the ranking position and allows the maintenance of the allowance if pregnant. The protection of athletes on maternity leave has been introduced into the fundamental principles of CONI.”
And, if career can affect motherhood for women, the same cannot be said for political ideas and beliefs. Like those of Valentina Rondini and Federica Cesarini who in life have rowed as much as they could winning together at Tokyo 2020 in the lightweight double sculls regatta. They were a true example because after that Olympics, “registrations among women increased by thirty percent – explained Rondini”, who concludes: “There was more talk about women’s rowing. It’s nice to feel your value recognized”.
Why the great theme of ‘meritocracy’, in fact, is at the basis of the lives of these women. They achieved their victories regardless of being women and they won with more pride precisely because they were women. They reject women’s quotas because sport is meritocratic and things must be achieved with facts and even if it took time, by fighting they crossed the finish line.
‘Rose Gold’ is a book written by a man, an Olympic sports commentator and journalist, a great professional who has always told of extraordinary feats. And even though it talks about women, we hope that it will be mostly read by men, the true and ultimate recipients of the message that so many women are forced to send every day. And that is that, when there is tenacity, talent, courage, ambition, strength and determination, there is no gender that holds up. If a woman wins, it always has greater value, because the cost of reaching that goal was greater.
And now another great event awaits just as many great women on the field. The Paris 2024 Olympics, which will be held in July, will perhaps be the most ‘modern’. The logo was transformed to form the face of ‘Marianne’, a symbol of strength and freedom that recalls the French Republic and Delacroix’s painting.
The media and the press were asked to pay particular attention
to the language used so that we do not focus on irrelevant details such as clothing or personal relationships and which go beyond the scope of the sports storywhich often happens when women are the protagonists. The same ones who, for the first time in the world, will be numerically equal to the number of their male colleagues: 10,500 athletes in total, divided equally: 50% male, 50% female. But gender equality is something else entirely and there is still too much to do to achieve it in every field. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another century for a small step that, although formal, acquires ever greater value at the Olympics.