When two young German canoeists win bronze at the Los Angeles Olympics, Maradona was not yet the idol of Naples and Pantani was little more than an unknown boy who loved cycling uphill. They are West German because in Berlin there was still the Wall even if the West was beginning to look with hope at the new advances from Moscow with Mikail Gorbachev's perestroika.
One is called Josefa Ditto. It's August 1984. In Italy those were the days when Silvio Berlusconi, still far from entering politics, was expanding his television empire by buying Retequattro from Mondadori. In America in the throes of Reaganite optimism, the computer – still unknown to half the planet – was about to be elected Time's Person of the Year.
Everything has changed in the world since then except for Josefa who from Los Angeles on continued to paddle the canoe arriving today at his eighth Olympics and that tomorrow, in the Eton Dorney basin, she will try to win her second gold after the one in Sydney in the K1 500 meters by competing, by now at the age of 48, with athletes who weren't even born when he first stepped onto the podium to receive bronze at the 1984 Games.
In truth also in the life of Josefa an important change has happened if since 1990 it has defended the colors of the Italian flag and no longer the German one, having chosen Italian citizenship after marrying Gugliemo Guerrini in 1990, who had become her coach for a year. A successful combination in life and in sport, because it is Idem herself who acknowledges that she has started winning again “only when – she revealed in an interview on the eve of London 2012 – I combined joy with commitment, before I was focused and meticulous but I risked ending up crushed by the weight of my expectations. As an Italian I learned to play down".
Josefa, perfect synthesis between German efficiency and Mediterranean fantasy, mother of two children, Janek and Jonas who are now 17 and 9 years old, in more than three decades of career he has won five world championships and one Olympics in canoeing, but above all he has never failed to participate at the highest levels in the major events on the calendar. As a blue she made her debut at the Barcelona Olympics, her third in her life, finishing fourth. She in Atlanta she replicates the bronze in Los Angeles. It is the beginning of a very successful period: from 1997 to 2000 three world titles (and another 10 podium placements), five European titles and the gold medal at the XXVII Olympics in Sydney.
At 38, recently appointed councilor for sport of Ravenna, she suspends her competitive activity for her second motherhood. But the birth of Jonas in 2003 doesn't stop Josefa. Indeed, she returns to training in view of her sixth Olympics, that of Athens, where she wins the silver medal. Retire? Not a chance. As at the age of 43 he presented himself at the Beijing Games and by only 4 thousandths of a second he missed out on the gold. And here she is in London 2012, equaling the record for attendance at the Olympics held by Piero and Raimondo d'Inzeo in equestrianism, but above all fighting as always for a medal. “I feel like a fifteen year old”, he said yesterday after beating everyone in his semifinal. Whatever happens in the final he has already won, becoming a legend without ever overdoing it. On her web site Josefa she writes: "Defeats naturally burn, but they are also an excellent opportunity to learn and do better the next time".
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