SPOLETO – It has been defined several times by journalists as lo “Tsar of Spoleto” and his figure has strongly contributed to making the Umbrian city, known internationally for the Festival dei Due Mondi, one of the Italian capitals of volleyball.
The story of Ivan Zaytsev Everyone in Spoleto knows it and it is he himself who tells the story of the beginning in his autobiographical book “Mia” (also personally presented at the Roman theater in Spoleto):
“On October 2, 1988, there was more than nine thousand kilometers between me and my father. And some of that distance will remain forever. I am in Spoleto, Umbria, he is in Seoul, South Korea. I am in the San Matteo degli infermi civil hospital, he is in the Jamsil sports hall. Me in the maternity ward, him on the pitch. Me with my mother, him with the Soviet national volleyball team. I am fifty-five centimeters tall, he is one meter ninety-one. I weigh four and four hundred kilos, he weighs around ninety kilos. At ten past ten I open my eyes to the world, and in the meantime he’s playing the world in the Olympic final.
It’s a Sunday. I have no memories of that day, except what I heard from my mother. It’s a Sunday that begins immediately on Saturday night thanks to a question of time zones: my mother is at home with a couple (the Duranti family ed.) of friends and Rina, a midwife, watching the Olympic final on TV, live. Right in the middle of the night, and of the match, you can see that I too feel the match and my mother starts having contractions. She rushed to the hospital and, at ten past ten, I made my debut in society”.
A champion was born, the son of two Russians, but to all intents and purposes an Italian who for many years defended the colors of the Italian national volleyball team precisely because he was born in Spoleto.
Ivan’s was not just any career. He wrote the history of Italian volleyball by participating in three Olympics (London, Rio and Tokyo), leading the Azzurri to achieve the best result in history at an Olympics. In fact, after the bronze in London came the silver in Rio. In his palmares there are also three championships (two with Civitanova and one, the first in Umbrian history, with Sir Perugia) and other important national and international trophies.
Invan’s is an incredible career full of satisfactions which, however, is about to end and perhaps the only regret is that of not being able to emulate his father Vjačeslav of the “Slava” who won the Olympic gold with Russia in 1980 in Moscow (for the record he also won two silvers Montreal 76 and Seoul 88).
The Zaytsevs with 5 medals around their necks between father and son rightfully enter the world history of sport and in all this there is a bit of Spoleto because father “Slava”, arrived in Italy for the first time in 1988 and precisely in Umbria to defend the colors of the Olio Venturi team, bringing Spoleto to the A1 series for the first and only time in history.
No athlete has ever carried the name of Spoleto as high as Ivan did and the city must be grateful to him. The proposal that comes from Valleumbrasport.it, just under a year after the death of “Slava”, is to grant him honorary citizenship.
The mayor of Spoleto Andrea Sisti also likes the idea illustrated, only informally, and therefore now all that remains is to start the procedures to bring it to the city council. At the same time there is already talk of a memorial entitled to the late “Slava”.
