Dive with controversy from Ponte Cavour, a troupe from Le Jene forced the police for the traditional inaugural jump at the beginning of the year into the Tiber demanding to make the reporter and accompanying operators dive and accusing Maurizio Palmulli, Mister Ok until three years ago, of wanting to monopolize the event.
Dive with controversy from Ponte Cavour, Maurizio Palmulli disconcerted by the brawl sparked by Le Iene who accuse him of wanting to monopolize the event
“A complete provocation, in the name of a terrible example of journalism which evidently aims to ruin a custom that has been going on since 1946 with unwritten but very precise safety rules”, attacks Palmulli, still visibly irritated by an incursion booed by hundreds of people waiting for the flight of Marco Fois, 63 years old, heir to a custom subjected to very stringent rules of prudence.
“We are talking about a jump of 17 and a half meters that only a few trained people can do in a context of relative safety“, explains the former Mister Ok.
Danger around the corner
“I myself, during the 36 years in which I jumped from that point, broke a finger, pierced my eardrums twice and caught a log dragged by the current which opened a gash on my chest that required 14 stitches”.
“Not to mention the damage to two spinal vertebrae, the d7 and the d9 which were the reason for my retirement from the stage three years ago because if I had tried again I could have ended up in a wheelchair. These are not things that can be improvised -continues Palmulli- and it’s not about wanting to monopolize anything but about allowing this tradition to continue by giving space to young people”.
An ancient tradition
Marco Fois has taken over from Palmulli and he is the new Mister Ok, last of a long chain inaugurated immediately after the end of the Second World War by the Belgian Rick De Sonay who forged it, complete with a top hat on his head, to celebrate his birthday which fell on January 1, 1946. Mister Ok, because that was the gesture with which he reassured the spectators after re-emerging from the water.
Fois runs a van in Santa Maria Maggiore and makes sandwiches all night for a living. This is just to remember that the New Year’s Eve jump has remained a tradition that does not yield profits and is outside the constraints of politics.
“Marco Fois has been diving with me for 26 years and was an amateur champion from the ten meter springboard -continues Palmulli- little by little we are introducing two more boys, the last of whom is the twenty-year-old son of one of our jumpers who, for health reasons, was unable to be there today”.
“But which exclusive? Those reporters didn’t understand a thing, they just came there to make a fuss. Will I have every right to evaluate who can or cannot jump into a point where the water of the Tiber is just 4 and a half meters deep and has an average temperature of about 6 degrees at this time of year? All it takes is for someone to get hurt and the game breaks”.
No improvisations
There are many unconscious imitators, but Mister Ok’s traditional dive leaves no room for adventurers.
“One week before the event -continues Maurizio Palmulli- we ask for authorization from the firefighters who, knowing how we are organised, ask for the number of divers and send an equipped dinghy from the diving group to the site which immediately recovers those who have jumped. You cannot rely on the presumed safety of a candle jump, because on such a long trajectory you can break down in an instant”.
Different techniques
It is no coincidence that the techniques of the various Mister Oks have always been personal and whoever has inherited their legacy uses different techniques.
Marco Fois performs a piked dive with a rotation and a half before the impact that sends him directly to the bottom. While Maurizio Palmulli went down in history for his spectacular technique. An angel-breasted flight towards that surface so black and so low that just looking at it from the abutment of the bridge is truly scary.
“I used to dive into the stream -remember- and I entered with the upper part of the chest, this means that the emergence is practically immediate, you don’t go down much and for this there is a very simple explanation”.
“When people regularly bathed in the Tiber, in case of emergency the lifeguard, or someone on his behalf, had to be able to immediately put his head out to look for the person left in difficulty and reach him without wasting time in the re-emerging phase. This is why I talk about traditions to be defended”.
“I ask for a comparison with Le Iene!”
But this man who looks like a Viking and continues to serve on the free beaches of Ostia as a rescue sailor not will give any discount to the Le Iene troupe that appeared today in Ponte Cavour for one broadcast of Italia Uno which, moreover, Palmulli has always appreciated for his investigations.
“This time, however, they made me really angry and I will ask for a confrontation with the journalist who assembled all this ambaradan, asking to speak to us in the studio, because the spirit of emulation inspired by that report can put the health of the Sunday imitators at risk who don’t know how much meticulousness it takes to prepare that inaugural jump at the beginning of the year”.
On Maurizio Palmulli You may also be interested in the intervention to which this link refers on the case of the contaminated clams in Fiumicino.
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