In Georgia, the climate is vaguely rainy in April.
On the sea, in Batumi, it is actually rainy almost all year round. It is the fault of being squeezed between the Black Sea and the mountains.
Turkey is a few tens of kilometers away, heading south.
Exit the building where the European Weightlifting Championships have just taken place - the Senior race, the Gold circuit - facing the corner, and there is the Soviet Union. There is a strong past that still saturates the urban landscape, and there is the desire to look to the future. There are small houses with a tin roof against contemporary buildings.
There are images of history books that come to life along the streets, and there are the medals of Nino Pizzolato.
Index
Nino Pizzolato, Sicilian instinct and warm blood
Class 1996, category 81 kg.
Gold at the Europeans of Batumi for the specialty – momentum – e gold for the total Under 23.
In the momentum, Nino misses the first two probably due to the incredible desire to get on the platform.
Then the desire for the podium takes over, watch the video of the momentum from 201 kg, and you find it hard to comment.
An epochal riser, thanks to which Nino brings home not only the medals, but also important points with which to approach the ticket for Tokyo 2020.
Past and present the past and the present are mixed just like in Castelvetrano, the "little village" where Nino grew up and where he inherited the concept of fatigue from his father nice to do.
Fatigue, ethics and fall of the gods
We are in the times of the rediscovery of weight lifting. Many approach the classic lifts thanks to Crossfit, but also because more and more professionals of the discipline are coming to social media showing statuesque physiques - and not extreme ones like those of bodybuilding current – and great performance in elegant, beautiful to look at risers.
Do you have a myth?
I had it, but now I don't have it anymore. He's a Russian [the decayed gods are not mentioned]. By the way, he has a technique very similar to mine, I always recognized myself. Then I discovered that he used doping, and he passed me. I put it aside. I do not care anymore.
pay him. It's like when you prepare a race car - Nino uses the world of engines and mechanics to talk about himself and his sport - you know the engine has to pull too hard, and you have to change it regularly otherwise the car won't hold up.
Tightly connected: mine it is not a sport that everyone can practice, because it requires mobility and muscular qualities that are not available to everyone.
But he is lucky, because he entered a very young gym. Enlightened by weight lifting, this is his path since then.
He tells me that weightlifting it is “a sport for all sports”. Anyone who practices it, even at an amateur level, cannot fail to have benefits. For the power, which you then need in your sport: but also for the prevention of injuries, and to build a more performing and harmonious body.
But him calls itself Caterpillar - certainly not a graceful image. And yet you watch the 201 kg made to fly without hesitation, and the beauty of the athletic gesture is revealed to you.
As in that hand brought to the heart as soon as the bar stops on the platform.
The components of the sportsman
I observe that often, and especially if we look at spectators, gods weight lifters we see two distinct components, which sometimes interpenetrate as in a sports yin-yang. There is the animality of those who literally tear the barbell off the ground on the platform, and there is theextreme concentration, the Zen of being closed in oneself.
Mirco [Scarantino, companion of Europeans] it is like this: look for the perfect concentration moment.
It's not manic, it's not very technical. I do not think so. I take the bar and get up.
Vent, liberation, realization sought - and found - in the setup on the platform, in the moment of the lift, in the balance dropped.
Does instinct also accompany you in your daily life, or do you relegate it to sport?
Nino is a Sicilian, and he has the islanders warm blood. His other passion is rally, which he practices when he can, in Sicily, in the time that training leaves him free.
I always have instinct. It's even worse in the car.
He laughs.
When I call him to fix the interview he is in the middle of the afternoon training. The next day we finally have time to talk on the phone. He just finished that morning.
From the father has inherited fatigue, but not the sacrifice. Everyone will tell you this interviews that you will read online.
Sacrifice - I point out to him that it is often on the lips of sportsmen and sportsmen - for me it is negative, it is giving up, it is what you are doing reluctantly.
Engines again:
If I love my car, if I want that one, and because of some problem in life, I am forced to sell it: this is a sacrifice for me. Instead my father did a hard job, ended up late and was in town because he wanted to make everyone happy, but it wasn't a problem. It was done, and he did it with a smile. He taught me that.
Weight lifting, a common language
For those who do sports force, Eastern Europe is a mythical land of men of extreme strength. There is the Bulgarian method, there is a high protein diet based on meat soups, there is Dimitry Koklov, the forbidden dream of anyone with an internet connection and tries his hand at snatch and clean&jerk.
I ask Nino if this difference was noticeable in the European backstage.
No. I mean, there's something you feel if you've been around for a while. I who instinctively raise it, this is where it is immediately seen by those who practice sport, or coaches. But it ends there. The important thing is not the method, it is not how you get there: the important thing is the riser.
Is weight lifting a universal language?
We athletes have to do that. We must not think about it too much, but dedicate ourselves to movements.
I ask him about current tendency to conceptualize everything, to get lost in reasoning and, in the end, not to do.
Too much thinking should be avoided. Then it can also happen to me - we are human - that before getting on the platform I do too many thoughts. But that's normal, otherwise we would just be cars, right?
Nino is "around" by the 2010. It's not much, but it's not even cheap. Someone down in the village, on the street, greets me, "Hello champion". I tell him I'll be champion when I finish my career. I tell him that for now I'm just an athlete doing his job well.