Al Corsera: «Janinik also said it. I like swimming but it’s not fun”
Gold medalist Italy’s Thomas Ceccon poses after the medals ceremony for the men’s 50m butterfly swimming event during the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka on July 24, 2023. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)
Ceccon: «To win you need obsession. Sinner? They’re exaggerating, they’re making a saint out of him.”
To give you an idea: Thomas Ceccon enters the hotel in Paris for an event of the technical sponsor and the first thing he asks is if the training at dawn the next day will be held in the Olympic competition pool. The answer is no, but it makes it clear that Thomas can’t wait. Obsessed and aware of it. Our best hope for medals for the Paris Olympics, the world record holder of the 100m backstroke, Mr. versatility, gets up, eats, watches motivational videos, goes to sleep, prepares for the last test before Paris, the Settecolli (starting tomorrow in Rome) thinking «about winning gold at the Games».
He says the Olympics are his obsession. How do you manage it?
«It’s not done. There is».
How often do you think about the Olympics? Every day, every hour, every minute?
«Eh, it’s becoming every minute, there’s nothing you can do about it. Every 50 on backstroke I say “this is the return of the hundred that I will do in the final”, “this is the arrival”, “this is the departure”. It’s a continuum. It also happens some days that I wake up and don’t think about it, but there are much fewer of them than the days when I wake up and my mind immediately goes to that race there.».
Is obsession necessary to win?
«I’ve always had it, and when there’s a commitment like this… maybe it’s necessary. It also depends on the stage of my career, I’m 23, it’s my time».
Ceccon: «I always train, I can’t sit still»
Many swimmers have gone too far, aren’t you afraid of that?
«Of course, I know, but they are all people who have won a lot. If you win three Olympic gold medals and have to face the fourth, your body and mind necessarily take a break. But I’m young, I’ve won relatively little, so I always train, even in the summer, I take a couple of days off at most. Then gym, running, cycling, I can’t sit still».
If I tell you the word water now, what do you think? Fun, work, victory, effort.
«It’s work, even if I like it, in fact I do it every day, twice a day. But no fun, it’s not fun».
Does your work ethic make you similar to current sensation Jannik Sinner?
«FMaybe yes, although I think all champions have it. Now everything about him is exaggerated, he said it first, even if he cleans the lines of the pitch it seems like he is a saint. I would like to meet him, we are the same age, when he wins I want to win too. As a child I played tennis, Nadal is my idol».
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