Manuel Bortuzzo returns to attract the attention of Italians, ready to follow him with pride as he competes on behalf of the country. The swimmer, now twenty-five, was at the center of national news for the terrible attack on the outskirts of Rome that caused him a spinal injury, but now he shows himself in a different guise: that of the talent and hard work that took him all the way to Paris 2024.
The beginnings
Born in Trieste on May 3, 1999Manuel Bortuzzo showed since he was a child two great loves: music and swimming. At six years old he began to play the drums and always as a child he practiced swimming, demonstrating an exceptional talent.
He immediately showed what he was made of at the youth level, winning numerous regional and national meetings in various races and distances. He was especially noticed in the middle distance distances, such as the 400 and 1500 meters freestyle. In 2015, he set a new Italian record in the Boys category in the 3000 metrestaking it away from a star of the caliber of Gregorio Paltrinieri.
The prospects for the young Bortuzzo appear rosy and he is soon noticed by the coaches of the national swimming team: he is selected for the “Road to Tokyo 2020” project and moves to the Federal Center of Ostia to train with Olympic medalists such as Paltrinieri and Gabriele Detti. “It’s like taking a boy who plays soccer and putting him to train with Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi. The dream was coming true and there I felt him getting closer and closer”, he recalled in an interview with Olympics.com.
The assault
Bortuzzo had his sights set on the 2019 World Championships, but in February of that year his life changed forever. While he was outside a pub on the outskirts of Rome, not far from his home, he was hit in the back by bullets fired at him due to mistaken identity.
One of the bullets missed his aorta by a few millimeters and the boy, just nineteen years old, survived, but the shots caused a spinal cord injury, paralyzing half of his body.
The break from sports
Very difficult months begin for Bortuzzo. Despite the physical pain, his approach to the world remains initially naive. “I told my teammates that in two months I would be back to challenge them in a 50 freestyle,” he recalls to Olympics.com, but then the first time he returns to the pool everything becomes clear. “Going back into the water,” he says, “has really slammed the reality of my condition in my face. While I was on dry land I didn’t realize it. When I got back into the game I understood exactly where I ended up and from there a long and difficult journey began, especially from a mental point of view.”
When he started training again, “also fighting the media aspect that instead already gave me as the winner at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics”, he understood that at that moment swimming was not what he needed and that it was not possible to aim for a victory at the Olympics without first focus on yourself and understand how to live your daily life.
Music, which has always been there to give him comfort, becomes one of his refuges. As a child he started with the drums, but then he continued with the piano (in addition to having “as a whim” two guitars, an electric and an acoustic). “I play the piano – he explains to Olympics – I do it seriously and it has always been a constant in my life. I don’t know how to compose, to compose there is a study that I haven’t tackled yet, but that I will certainly tackle. Every now and then I improvise and when I improvise I hear something that I like”.
Then start getting tattoossomething he had never considered doing because before the accident he imagined himself with a career in the Italian army, which does not allow soldiers to have tattoos. Thus, on his body appear the date of the fateful accident, the number “12” (the millimeters that separated the bullet from the abdominal aorta and kept him alive), the word “changes”, the eagle, an animal that flies alone and not in a group and “represents the fact that in life, with all our problems, we could have anyone at our side, but then in the end we will always be alone, having to travel and having to live”.
The desire to tell others about yourself arrives: writes two books (the first one also became a film, Rinascere), He takes part in some television programs, including Big Brother VIPand creates content on social media, where he now has nearly 500,000 followers. “I didn’t even know about Instagram, or social media, or the media and television world,” Bortuzzo said. “But I found myself in a position within that world, and if you have the opportunity to do something else in life, take it.”
All this allows you to stop, look inside yourself and start a different life. When it’s the right time to ask yourself who you want to be again, sport comes back to the fore. In the Big Brother VIP house, she meets the Italian sabre fencer Aldo Montano, with whom she becomes friends immediately after Tokyo 2020, when Montano ended his career with a fifth Olympic medal. “Aldo Montano is that person who made me have that determination, that desire again. Maybe I already had the desire to go back to swimming and to be an athlete, but I was missing the determination of a champion who makes you feel it”, says Bortuzzo.
The return to the pool
Manue Bortuzzo returns to swimming knowing he has to start over to understand how to compete differently than he was used to, but with the certainty and determination of wanting to be an athlete. He realizes how, in Paralympic swimming, experience is fundamental and often overrides youthful energy and power.
In November 2022 he ranked second at the Italian Championships, then won his first races during the Para swimming World Series in Lignano Sabbiadoro. “I have done World Cup stages, for example in Berlin – he told Olympics.com – where I met my opponents, the first and second in the world in the 100 breaststroke and there is still a gulf, I see it, because they are guys who have been doing it for many years. The World Champion in the 100 breaststroke [il colombiano Moises Fuentes Garcia] He did his first race in 2003, when I was only four years old…”.
Training, determination and perseverance led him to obtain fifth place at the Manchester 2023 World Championships, to finish just off the podium at the Funchal 2024 European Championships and to qualify for Paris 2024. “The call to the Games is a double emotion. It will be an honour to represent Italy and to do so in the most important competitive context”, he said.
When to see him compete
Manuel Bortuzzo competes in the 100m breaststroke at the 2024 Paris Paralympics on Monday 2 September.
#Manuel #Bortuzzo #Paris #swimmer #mistakenly #shot #shooting
