None like her. At 31, Vanessa Ferrari takes the Olympic medal she had never managed to take home, reaching the top like no Italian had before. Accidents, injustices, bad luck: but Vanessa smiles again, even when she says she "went for gold, to play the anthem". There is no general public to pay homage due to an extraordinary career, but those present in the Arieke Gymnastics building in central Tokyo feel a thrill to see her jump, spin, fly and glide to the notes of " Con te partirò ", the song that accompanied her in this adventure in Tokyo 2020. Between two sixteen year olds and other twenty year old girls, Vanessa performs on the track the exercise she planned and studied for this final, in which themost prestigious opponent, Simone Biles. Gold goes to American Jade Carey, despite the fact that in qualifying it was Vanessa who scored the best score. In the end Carey reaches 14,366, choosing a more difficult exercise (6,300 the quotient) than that of Vanessa (5,900), who thought for a long time to raise the bar but then decided not to risk. Despite a better execution, 8,300 against 8,066 by the US.best execution, 8,300 against 8,066 of the US.best execution, 8,300 against 8,066 of the US.
Vanessa Ferrari remains firmly in second place on the podium, the Brazilian Rebeca Andrade makes a mistake that cuts her off, the others are below, with the Japanese Murakami and the Russian Melnikova to share the third step of the podium. After the misadventures of years of successes escaped the last one, of the undeserved fourth place in Rio, of terrible injuries and of an obstacle qualification, the tranquility with which Vanessa entered the race, carrying out what was announced. The first tribute, with a memory of all the misadventures he had to overcome, was that of the president of Coni, Giovanni Malagò, who followed the race standing up and applauded at the end.