Paralympics: Sabatini, Caironi, Contrafatto, the Charlie's Angels of the Italian flag

Paris, 27 August 2024 – Fourteen seconds, little more, may be enough to make a unforgettable day and link the lives of three very different girls. 4 September 2021, Tokyo: on the track that he had already seen triumph Marcell Jacobs, that was the evening of the final of the women's 100 meters category t63, an acronym which, at the Paralympics, characterizes the presence of a prosthesis in athletics. Rain, wet track, three Italians in the starting blocks: Monica Contrafatto in lane 4, Martina Caironi in lane 6, Ambra Sabatini in lane 7.

At the start, it is a blue wave that goes up and overwhelms: third, second and first place, an all-Italian trio on the podium. In athletics, at those levels, something never seen before. Unique story of different stories, that of the three girls who will also be on the track in Paris, partly because it is their life, partly because they have long since developed a taste for it, partly because that pose, on the podium in Charlie's Angels, each adorned with the tricolor, deserves a repeat, however difficult it may be. A trio that unites Italy from north to south (Tuscan Sabatini, Lombard Caironi, Sicilian Contrafatto), an intergenerational trio (born in 2002 Ambra, 1989 Martina, 1981 Monica) which is already part of the Paralympic myth, also because only sport could sew a part of their lives.

Amber Sabatini, the youngest of the three, is in Paris – together with Luke Mazzone – the Italian flag bearer, an honor that in 2016 in Rio fell to Martina Caironi, while Monica Counterfact, to the flag, she dedicated her life as an Army soldier, which cost her the amputation of her right leg due to an attack during a mission in Afghanistan on 24 March 2012. There is a lot of tricolour, in this story, for better or for worse, and there is a figure, that of Martina Caironi, which in fact was an inspiration for both companions. For Sabatini, who lost his leg in a motorbike accident just like Martina, and for Contrafatto, who started thinking about his sporting career just by watching it on TV, with that gold and world record in the 100m at the London Paralympics, in 2012 When Ambra, who is now its heir, however, could never have thought of the Paralympics. Counting them today, you make eight Paralympic medals in three. And it's not over yet.