Like a rainbow on a sunny day, with the energy and enthusiasm of her 16 years, Benedetta Pilato appears on the penultimate day of the European Championships and paints the Azzurri story of Budapest 2021 in bold colours. The girl from Taranto flies in the 50 m breaststroke semi-final and, when she touches the wall, she realises she has done something extraordinary. “Really, I didn’t think I was so fast on the clock,” she recounts, moved, to the Rai1 cameras, “and then the world record on top of that, wow, I still haven’t taken it in.” At fourteen and a half, her debut at a World Championship, beating the record of a certain Federica Pellegrini. Awaiting a final as the favourite, a record that means history and, at the same time, confidence in a bright future.
