2021 Olympics

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to bring people together in a way that few other things do. Speak to young people in a language they understand.
Sport can bring hope where once there was only despair ». This sentence by Nelson Mandela describes well the mood of many Italians in this summer: from the victory at the European football championships to the many emotions that the Tokyo Olympics are giving us.

Both sporting events also share the fact that they should have taken place last year, but due to the pandemic they have been postponed. Looking back, this fact acquires a particular meaning: complicated months have passed (and the pandemic is not yet over), but despite everything it seems that the wind has changed and that sport has regained that ability to unite people (even from a distance) and whole nations.

There could be many emotions to remember for the Italians, such as the much feared penalties in the London final and the cry of victory, the first and historic victory in the hundred meters, the great recovery in the final of the cycling race and many others ... However, I believe that a singular and even more special manifesto could be the equal victory of Tamberi and Barshim in the high jump: they could decide whether to try one more jump to decree a winner, but they preferred to win together; a shared gold is not frequent, but it shows us that in the end what triumphed was not only the technical and physical ability, but above all a sport blessed by a friendship that unites and that makes sport an opportunity for unity .

We continue to see that the emotions of this time seem almost a rebirth from a dark period, a desire to overcome the difficult moments of the recent past, almost an anticipation of a society in which the fear of the virus has been overcome. As Pierre de Coubertin, inventor of the modern Olympic Games, said: "Sport seeks fear to dominate it, the effort to triumph over it, the difficulty to win it"; if you live this spirit, after all, the sport that unites us always wins.

Roberto Lerda
NP August / September 2021