Doctor Piero Benelli, although a young man from 1955, you certainly know what happened to our great fellow citizen Gioachino Rossini born on February 29th. “To celebrate your birthday every four years?”.
Well, what happens to you every four years?
“To go to the Olympics.”
And since when does this stuff happen?
“Since 2008…”.
With the one in Paris he will be the person from Pesaro who has participated in the most Olympics. Tell me all of them.
“Beijing 2008, London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016, Tokyo 2020/21”.
But it didn’t end there why?
“Because soon I will be leaving for the Paris Olympics scheduled for August.”
Excuse me, but what are you doing at all these Olympics?
“For many years now I have been the doctor of the Italian men’s national volleyball team.”
But between one Olympics and the next he will do something, like work, for example.
“I am a surgeon and sports doctor, medical director of the Fisioclinics Polyclinic of Pesaro, fundamentally focused on rehabilitation, I have been a doctor at Vuelle Basket for 36 years and I am a professor at the University of Urbino”.
I’d say that’s enough to fill the days. And since I’m envious I see that in four Olympics he has never won the gold medal.
“True, the men’s national volleyball team won bronze in London, silver in Rio, but never gold, the great dream of our boys and mine.”
Let’s do this, if you don’t win it in Paris, since you are reigning world champions, you’re done with the Olympic Games.
“We’ll see if we can do it.”
The Olympics are a longed-for destination, but not always unforgettable. How were yours?
“The most beautiful in terms of organization is London, the most fun is Rio, the saddest is Tokyo due to Covid, we ate at the table separated by plexiglass”.
Look, you come from a cultured family, your father, a well-known gynecologist, has read more books than delivered children. How are you doing with reading?
“I read while traveling, so a lot, plus I have to update myself professionally.”
Are volleyball players or basketball players smarter?
“They are sports that both require intelligence, awareness and reasoning, they express different cultures: American that of basketball, Italian that of volleyball”.
In volleyball there is no physical contact, you have to touch the ball three times before sending it over. Is everything really that easy?
“Not at all, I had to change my mind too, everything has to be built tactically and strategically.”
And do volleyball and basketball today have a similar element?
“The power of athletes, a general component of today’s sport”.
Do you think your father expected a sports doctor as a son?
“My father always encouraged me to study seriously, independently of sports medicine.”
I remember him well, he was certainly not someone who loved quackery. I was a basketball player, he was a gynecologist, we talked about Thomas Mann and his chickens and rabbits.
“I have a memory of it too.”
I imagine vague given the age. A sports team has two types of pathologies: injuries and those inherent to its nature as people who must coexist as best as possible to win. Is it the same with the national volleyball team?
“Yes, it has everything in it: from healing to recovery times, from psychological well-being to nutrition, to the ability to be together, paradoxically to how to live in an Olympic village.”
I say Piero Benelli and the shadow of Raul Zini immediately hovers, why?
“Because with him I began to work towards a friendship that borders on complicity.”
I don’t know why but I greet you with a famous saying: Paris is worth a mass, if it’s a gold medal even better. It fits you well?
“You feel like it, it suits me.” fb
