Alberta SANTUCCIO

THE POWER AND THE GLORY

AIberta Santuccio is an Italian Fencer and 2021 team Olympic bronze medalist. She was born on 22nd October 1994, in Catania, Italy. She began fencing at the age of seven.

You were born in Catania, Italy. You began fencing at the age of seven after witnessing your brother Giorgio play the sport. This later propelled your career to the height where you represent Team Italy at the 2020 Summer Olympics and helped them win a bronze medal in the Team épée fencing. Tell us more about your professional journey of exceptional hard work, tenacity, and endurance.

The life of us sportsmen is not always as full of enthusiasm as one might think from the outside. In our journey there are more climbs we face than descents. The first major decision I made in my career was when in 2016 I decided to leave my gym, my family and my homeland to train in another city, I moved to Milan where I spent two years.

Later I realized that things were not going as I had planned and hoped and I again found myself having to make another decision, which was to move to Rome. This, however, meant yet another new gym, a new teacher, a new life, but inside me I knew it would be the best choice and in fact it turned out to be so: I immediately had a great feeling with Daniele (my teacher) with whom I did an exceptional job. With him I felt like I was back home a bit because I experienced that paternal sense of protection but at the same time he knew how to spur me on and shake me when I needed it. So we can say that my path was not always linear, but thanks to my character and perseverance I managed to obtain the stability I needed.

You have selected a sport which apart from individual sport is also a team sport and requires a lot of cohesiveness and family feeling between the players of the side to finally succeed, how do you achieve that?