Matteo Castaldo dropped the word that should not be pronounced in these Olympics at a press conference, raising their heads to three quarters of the room who had so far been listening with a more than discreet ear to this exchange with the podium of the four without coxswain.
“This morning we had lunch with Bruno, described the Italian.
And a few seconds later, he received a call from the doctor to tell him that he had tested positive for Covid-19 the day before ”.
We rewind the story.
Qualified for the final of its discipline scheduled for Wednesday morning (overnight in France), the transalpine boat therefore realized between two sips of coffee that one of its rowers was going to have to leave them immediately.
But the tests, launched urgently as soon as they learned of the infection of their partner Bruno Rosetti, did not detect any other positive case.
In this situation, athletes can compete if their event is scheduled less than six hours after this test, which was the case.
"The positive rower was immediately isolated and all precautions were taken around the Italian team," says the international federation.
To read alsoJO de Tokyo: Androdias-Boucheron, the story of a duo who slobbered to snatch gold by rowing
Italy therefore went to the sea forest channel, where the rowing events in Tokyo are held, with its regular replacement, Marco Di Costanzo. "What happened this morning is very difficult, but there was nothing we could do about it," continues Matteo Castaldo. In these cases, you have to go out there and push, push, push on the oars and hope that everything is going to be okay. "
It did, with an unexpected bronze medal behind Australia and Romania. The metal might even have been a different color, if the oars of the British boat hadn't hit theirs in the last few yards. “It clearly put us at a disadvantage at that time because we were going up meter by meter, regrets the sculptural Giuseppe Vicino. Without that, we could have played for gold, but in view of what happened, it's a very good medal for us. »Despite a spoiled breakfast.
