The Olympic World from a Gold Medalist Perspective

Lilly Allucci*

My name is Carmela Allucci, better known as Lilly and I am the captain of the Italian women’s waterpolo team. We recently won the golden medal at the Olympic Games in Athens. I am now 34 years old, but started to swim and take waterpolo classes at the age of six. I have been a member of the national team since I was 15. With this recent, prestigious victory, I have crowned my 15 year sporting career with the national Italian waterpolo team. Other success have included four European and two worldwide competition wins. It is from this particular point of view that I am answering to my friends at Vision. I have in fact intensively lived “the world of sport”. A world that most of the time develops itself in a healthy, virtuous and competitive atmosphere. Although there are some negative aspects (eg. partial judges, corruption, doping etc.), this all happens in an enviroment, which is governed by rules and expectations. In contrast, the so-called “real world” has rules which are continuously disregarded. It is a world at the mercy of violence and opportunism. There is a small elite, which takes decisions that have consequences on the vast majority and are certainly not driven by the common interest.
This has been my first experience of the Olympic Games. Participating in this event has confirmed the idea that “the world of sport”, as I have defined, is definitely far away from reality. Sporting events of high level, like European and world championships, have already shown me these difference between the two realities. Although the loyalty and the competitiveness observed was of a single sport contest, namely water polo. Instead, the Olympic Games represents the highest possible competition to which every sportsman and woman dreams to take part. They represent the pure “world of sport” where all participants live in a common atmosphere. All sports and cultures of the whole world are concentrated in a small space. Within the Olympic village all athletes of all nations live together sharing joys and pains. There is no inequality, everyone eats together and during free time attend common social events. Indeed, it seems as if all are living in a perfect world far a way from reality. This condition represents a utopia, which seems very difficult to realize.
In the real world the advantage of the single one or of a group it is justified by their personal interest, in the world of sport the single one or the group brings benefits also to the its own nation and, therefore, symbolically, to all its inhabitants. Although it is utopist, the world of sport can, however, represent a social model of reference for all the citizens in order to change the real world.


* Lilly Allucci is the captain of the female national waterpolo team, gold medalist in Athens 2004. She is 34 years old, she swims and plays waterpolo since she was 6. She has been part of the female national team since she was 15, and with it she has won 4 European and two World tournaments.


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