Two Italian athletes with two different life stories, united by the same passion for water, victory, and records. Last August, the European Swimming and Diving Championships were held in the French capital. Italy finished second in the medal standings, confirming its status as one of the continent’s greatest aquatic powers.
Among the many Italian champions who earned victories and medals, two made history in swimming and diving: Sara Curtis and Chiara Pellacani. These young athletes gave Italy two complementary images of triumph. The first challenged the water by racing through it; the second passed through it from above, in the fleeting instant between leaving the springboard and making a perfect entry.
Their backgrounds, ages, and places of origin are different, but in the French capital they transformed their talent into a very clear message: Italian sports can be young, diverse, and international.
Sara Curtis was born in Savigliano, in the province of Cuneo, on August 19, 2006, to an Italian father and a Nigerian mother. She grew up in Piedmont, supported by a family and a region that nurtured the early emergence of an athlete with extraordinary natural ability.
Swimming soon became the arena in which she tested herself: short distances, explosive speed, and the ability to combine power with precision. Curtis gradually added the backstroke to her already formidable talent as a freestyle sprinter.
In Paris, she made the leap from promising young athlete to global star. In the semifinal of the 50-meter backstroke, she swam 26.63 seconds, setting a world record. The following day, she won gold in the final and lowered the world record again, to 26.56. Two world records in two races, at only twenty years old.
Her Italian story now continues in the United States. Curtis chose the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she studies psychology and participates in American college athletics, balancing her education with training in one of the NCAA’s most competitive swimming programs.
Her move was not an escape, but an investment: a young Italian national team athlete bringing her experience into an international system so she can learn, develop, and return to her national team with new strengths. One of her inspirations is Gretchen Walsh, the outstanding American swimmer and University of Virginia athlete whom Curtis has described as both an idol and someone from whom she wanted to learn.
Sara thus embodies a second-generation Italy, firmly rooted in her country while remaining open to the world—identities that do not simply coexist, but become a source of competitive energy. Beyond the hundredths of a second and the stopwatch, her record tells that story as well.
Chiara Pellacani was born in Rome on September 12, 2002, to Italian parents. She discovered diving almost by chance when she was eight years old: a classmate encouraged her to try the springboard, and that first experience sparked a passion destined to become both a profession and a calling.
Her discipline demands a relationship with water that is the opposite of a swimmer’s. Swimmers move through it, conquering it one meter at a time. Divers look at it from above, trace a geometric figure through the air, and ask the water to receive them without disturbing the balance they achieved in flight. For Pellacani, that movement became a language.
After beginning her training at the Federal Center in Rome, her talent quickly became evident. She joined Italy’s junior national team during the 2015–16 season and made her senior debut at only fourteen at the European Championships in Kyiv.
At the 2026 European Championships in Paris, Pellacani accomplished something unprecedented: five gold medals in five events. She won the mixed team event alongside Matteo Santoro, Sarah Jodoin Di Maria, and Raffaele Pelligra, then completed her five-medal sweep with victories in individual and synchronized events—something no European diver, male or female, had ever achieved at a single continental championship.
It was more than a collection of medals. It was a demonstration of remarkable versatility: Pellacani proved capable of winning in individual, synchronized, and team competitions.
For her, Paris also carried the taste of redemption. In the city where she had experienced the disappointment of two fourth-place finishes at the 2024 Olympic Games, the Roman athlete enjoyed the brightest week of her European career.
Pellacani also chose the United States, although she followed a different path. After attending Louisiana State University, she continued her education at the University of Miami, where she studied psychology and graduated in 2025. She has lived in Miami since 2023, while continuing to train and compete at the highest level.
Her story represents another side of contemporary Italy: a Roman who grew up in the schools and swimming pools of the Italian capital, then crossed the Atlantic to build an adult life encompassing both academics and sports. It was not an abandonment of her origins, but an extension of them. Rome remains her starting point; Miami has become a place of growth.
Water unites them, but it does not make them indistinguishable. Sara Curtis is the flash that launches from the starting block and races toward the wall. Chiara Pellacani is the flight that begins on the springboard and seeks an almost invisible entry.
One comes from Piedmont and a family with both Italian and Nigerian roots; the other comes from Rome. Both chose the United States as a place to grow, and both returned to represent Italy and win.
They embody two ways of being Italian and two paths to excellence: the young woman who advances through speed and the athlete who transforms control into grace. In Paris, however, the conclusion was the same: the Italian national anthem, a gold medal around their necks, and a generation that no longer asks permission to make history.
