Rome (AFP)

The "Divine" Federica Pellegrini, as the Italians affectionately call her, will try to win a final Olympic medal in Tokyo, before ending a career of extraordinary longevity since her first coup in Athens in 2004 .

She may become the very first swimmer in Japan to compete in a fifth Olympic final over the same distance - the 200-meter freestyle - on Wednesday, after the previous ones of 2004 (silver), 2008 (gold), 2012 (5th) and 2016 (4th) .

Like this Phoenix tattooed on its neck, the "Fede" will often have had to be reborn over the years, to remain among the best in the world despite hard knocks and headwinds.

Beyond her multiple medals, she entered the hearts of Italians for almost twenty years with her fighter character and her great sensitivity.

Regularly submerged by tears, she is undoubtedly the biggest current star of Italian sport with MotoGP rider Valentino Rossi, apart from the stars of calcio.

After her last Olympics, she will make a final appearance in Italy, in September, for the Neapolitan stage of the ISL private league.

"I will soon be 33 years old (August 5, editor's note), there is a lot of fatigue, I have already stressed my body and my mind a lot", she explained in June, pushing back the idea of ​​prolonging until European Championships scheduled for Rome in 2022.

On the podium of the last eight World Championships over her favorite distance of 200m (4 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze since 2005), she still holds the best time over this distance.

- Girl from Venice -

She had established this brand in Rome in 2009, in front of tifosi passionate about this champion finally in the firmament after growing up in the shadow of the French Laure Manaudou.

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"La Pellegrini" made her debut in swimming in 2004: for her first Olympic Games, she was close to gold, but consoled herself with the money which made her, at 16, the youngest Italian sportswoman to climb an Olympic podium in individual.

A sacred introduction for this Venetian who, although born in a spa town, "never wanted to put her head under water when she was little, which made her monitors angry", recalls her mother Cinzia Lionello. , interviewed by AFP.

After Athens, the "Fede" will not stop, leaving to grow up in Milan and accumulating medals.

Olympic champion in Beijing, in 2008, she takes another step forward.

The brands are snapping up, but also the celebrity press which tracks down his loves and makes him a glamorous icon.

This will surprise the swimmer, who has long seen herself as "a tomboy".

But medals also have their flips.

Pellegrini is the victim of recurrent anxiety attacks which leave her KO'd on the edge of the pools and which she will learn to tame.

- "Live a little" -

At the end of 2009, a few months after the world title and the record in Rome, she also lost her lifelong trainer, Alberto Castagnetti, who died at the age of 69.

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"He was her mentor, her second father," recalls her mother.

"Both hard and tender, but those two things served Federica: her harshness in training, her softness on the outside."

After this tragedy, the swimmer looks for herself, changes coaches several times, working in particular several times with Philippe Lucas, but without finding real consistency.

The London Games, in 2012, will be those of failure: Pellegrini finishes without a medal and swims in full doubt.

Four years later, she was the flag bearer for Italy in Rio, winning a fourth final but still missing the podium.

But each time, she questions herself and continues to reign over the Worlds (silver in 2013 and 2015, then gold in 2017 and 2019) despite the arrival of a hungry succession: "I am too old for these emotions" , she smiles after the title in 2019 in Budapest.

The postponement of one year of the Olympics is a new obstacle.

But there was no question of giving up this ultimate dream, which she won while swimming in the pools, refusing the pass that was offered to her in view of her service record.

One last Olympic turn before "living a little", as her mother Cinzia Lionello wishes.

"She's been to a lot of places, to the nicest pools, but it's good that she's doing a little bit of her life now."

© 2021 AFP