2024 was a memorable year for Italian sports, thanks to the great achievements of the Italian athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and Jannik Sinner, who won 73 matches out of the 79 played, won two Masters and became the first tennis player in history capable of winning the Davis Cup and Atp Finals in the same year, ending the season as number one in the world.

But there is another Italian athlete who hit a series of impressive records in 2024, especially because she did so in a specialty of athletics, cross-country races, where African athletes are virtually unbeatable.

She is Nadia Battocletti, a petite girl born in Cles, a small town in Trentino Alto Adige, the daughter of Giuliano, a former marathon runner for the Italian national team, and Jawhara Saddougui, an 800-meter specialist with a past in the Morocco national team. A child of art who has managed at just 24 years old to become a star in long distance track and also in cross country, one of the toughest athletics specialties of all.

Nadia, a girl weighing only 47 kilograms, started running at a young age and already in the youth categories had already put herself on display in national and international competitions. From 2018 to 2022, she won all four European Youth Cross Championships in which she participated, making her Europe's most promising cross country runner. In 2023, in her first year among seniors, she studied her opponents well and began to believe in her potential, training with more conviction with her father Giuliano. And in 2024 she exploded, becoming the “white Kenyan” to everyone.

Nadia's golden season began with the European Athletics Championships, hosted in Rome, where she dominated both the 5000 meters and 10000 meters, bringing home two gold medals that few expected on the eve of the races. In both races, her smart strategy and ability to maintain a steady pace made her unbeatable. The successes at the European Championships not only demonstrated her competitive maturity, but also allowed her to set new Italian records in the two distances, marking a historic moment for Italian athletics.

But the highlight of Nadia's season came at the Olympic Games in Paris. On Aug. 5, she came close to a bronze medal in the 5000-meter race, finishing fourth behind only the world's strongest athletes, Kenyans Beatrice Chebet and Faith Kipyegon and Ethiopian-born Dutchwoman Sifan Hassan, who boasts eight European records and a world record. On August 9, on the same track as Paris, she stunned the world in the 10000-meter final, winning a historic silver medal for a European and white athlete. Faster than her was only Beatrice Chebet, who thus won the two Olympic cross-country races after her success in the 5000 meters. Her Olympic performance thrilled millions of Italians and demonstrated the extraordinary level reached by the athlete, who was able to compete with opponents considered unbeatable.

In addition to her European and Olympic successes, Battocletti shined in numerous other international competitions during 2024. She triumphed in several Diamond League events, accumulating valuable world ranking points and establishing herself as a major player on the world circuit.

The Italian cross-country skier's golden season ended with two more prestigious international successes. On December 8 she won the gold medal in the individual and team race at the European Cross-Country Championships in Antalya, and thanks to this result she became the first European athlete ever to triumph in the three categories (under 20, under 23 and overall) at the continental cross-country championships.

An incredible year for Nadia Battocletti who, between training on the track and in the woods of Trentino, where she lives and trains, also has time to study engineering and architecture at the University of Trento. Nadia Battocletti's victories represent much more than sporting triumphs. Her rise is symbolic of a new generation of Italian athletes who, through talent and hard work, are taking Italy back to the top of world athletics.