Paralympics, veteran standard-bearer Mazzone: from swimming to handbiking, from Sydney to Paris
First in the pool and then in the saddle, who is the athlete of the Italian expedition who grew up in the myth of Pancalli and Zanardi
Luca Mazzone with the other flag bearer, Ambra Sabatini
Paris, 28 August 2024 – Flag bearer together with Amber Sabatini in the opening ceremony, Luke Mazzone It is one of Paralympic veterans, and not only for a registry office that sees him today, 53 years, still competing, but also for acquired merits, having competed in its first edition in 2000, in Sydney, obtaining two medals in the S4 freestyle, two silvers in the 50 and 200.
A Rio and Tokyo Mazzone got there but not in tub, but in bicycle, in handbike to be precise, and he will do the same in Paris 2024, after three golds and three silvers which also made him a champion of cycling, and not just swimming. An all-round athlete since he was a boy, before diving from a cliff in Bari which cost him a spinal cord injury, a competitive athlete afterwards, until his retirement 2008, which then was not a retreat but a change of competitive career, considering what happened afterwards, when he was called up to the national Paralympic cycling team in 2012 which started a new series of triumphs.
The myths? Luca Pancalli in the pool and Alex Zanardi on the road, a sign that Mazzone he knew how to choose his examples well and he also followed their path with excellent results. He also shared the team and the triumphs with Zanardi, to the point that with the Apulian, the Bolognese and the Genoese Victor Podesta have often been referred to as the Three Tenors of Handbike blue. Not bad, for this former young man who can't stand one thing: the comfort zone. He said it, a few years ago, in an interview: "For me it is the absolute evil: if you are afraid of something, that fear becomes devastating because it doesn't let you live anymore. I am the first to be afraid every day, but every day I defeat it because I don't want it to get the better of me".
The Paris Games will be his sixth Paralympics, but being a flag bearer is something more: "I tell myself many times: Luca, you have twenty years of experience, you must not get emotional. The emotion, however, is inside me. It is the emotion of an athlete who has sport in his blood. This time, then, it is even stronger because being a flag bearer is a source of pride. It means that I deserve it".
Continue reading all the sports news on