Manila Esposito with four gold medals around her neck (general competition, beam, floor exercise and yesterday the team competition, the first three dedicated strictly to the grandparents, the last to her partner Asia D’Amato who cheered the team on from the stands after her knee injury on Friday) is more confident about going to Geolier’s concert in Milan (“Before the competitions I always energize myself with his songs”) than about taking part in the Paris Olympics: «In gymnastics you never know, you have to be in shape at the right time, everything can change in an instant, I don’t know coach Casella’s choices yet…», he slows down in every way.
But for the new star of magnesium powder born in the year in which our Lady of Gymnastics Vanessa Ferrari won gold at the World Championships in Aarhus, and blossomed in the heat of the home European championships in Rimini, in reality things are not quite like that. Meanwhile, there are still no tickets for Geolier (“By the way: help!”), and, with fingers crossed, a meteorite should fall to Earth why coach Enrico Casella (dealing with a difficult choice: eight gymnasts from which to select five) does not take Manila — born in Boscotrecase, province of Naples, lived up to 5 years in Torre Annunziata, moved to Civitavecchia for family needs and moved a year and a half ago to Brescia to the Casella Academy by her very strong will — to the Paris Games. Together with Alice D’Amato (European champion confirmed on parallel bars as well as silver all around) today she is one of the strong points of the team that concluded the European Championships with another gold yesterday. Great Britain tried until the end but Italy started behind on the vault, recovered on the parallel bars, placed fifth on the beam, managed the floor exercise and took back the gold from two years ago, after last year’s silver. Constantly at the top.
Manila: «Now I deserve a cheesecake»
«It was the objective we had set ourselves – Casella gloats –, I always play at making predictions and the result of these European Championships reflects my best predictions 100%». The depth of the movement can be seen from the fact that all the athletes who competed (Asia D’Amato, as mentioned, hurt her knee, making the singles day dramatic, especially for her sister Alice) won a medal, including the juniors.
Among these, however, those of Manila stand out (joined the Fiamme Oro) who has the stubbornness of an Irma Testa, with whom she shares her roots in Torre Annunziata («Determination is my strong point, if I make a mistake in a race I move forward without compromising the rest»), and a ability to adapt all her own (“It wasn’t easy to go and live alone, leaving my parents and my younger siblings, but in Brescia I have now integrated, Martina Maggio has been hosting me for a year and a half”) and his smile with gold around his neck is the best advertisement for his sport. Gold all around, the most complete test (“Difficult because we were destabilized by Asia’s injury”), gold on beam, and Italy had never succeeded (“Manila seemed to be on a highway”, Casella dixit) and gold to the free body (“The last test, I gritted my teeth”).
Manila with Vanessa Ferrari in Brescia
The demonstration that work pays (in Brescia, in contact with the best, it has grown a lot), but also that in gymnastics only sizes 40 (or 38) do not exist (and do not win): «Never had eating problems in my life – explains Manila —, if there’s dessert to eat, I’ll eat it. And after this victory, no one can take away a cheesecake from me. I am a powerful gymnast who tries not to lose expressiveness.”
In Brescia, Manila meets a certain Vanessa Ferrari in the gym, even though he has seen her little due to the latter’s many physical problems (still searching for a crazy dream of Paris 2024). Some people enjoyed making comparisons because not even SuperVani had won three individual golds at the European Championships, but it was a different era, there were the Russian and Romanian women at their peak. It is useless to look for parallels, lessons to be learned but yes: «The comparison is a bit scary, she is an idol, it’s nice to see her still pursuing her goals. What are mine? I reached someone today. And if I go to Paris…”. It will be more difficult to find Geolier tickets, by eye.
