Interview with Former World Fin-Swimming champion and Italian watersports expert Luca Tonelli

Find out more about Fin-Swimming as well as Sweet Team Modena, his elite swim club for all acquatic disciplines

Today our Italian office talks to Luca Tonelli, former fin-swimming world champion and water sports expert.

Luca, tell us where your passion for water sports comes from?

My passion stems from my past as a fin-swimmer. From the age of 14 to 30 I was part of the Italian national team, competing in five World and five European championships. After my career as an athlete, I started a managerial role for the Italian federation. In Modena, my home city, and thanks to the support of friends, I also started up a sports club, called Sweet Team Modena, which works not only with fin-swimmers, but also in synchronized swimming, triathlon, scuba diving, orientation, pentathlon and of course swimming. Activities and training is carried out at four main facilities in the Modena area and the club now has over 200 athletes on its books. In fin-swimming, Sweet Team Modena has won the Italian title as well as 15 national competitions.

Can you give us more details about your sport, fin-swimming?

It is a sport that takes place mainly in the pool with distances ranging from 50 to 1,500 metres, though this is for surface competitions; there are also underwater disciplines such as the 50 metres unassisted and 100 metres with breathing apparatus. Compared to normal swimming, the speed in the water is much faster, eg. the world record in the 50 metres is 13 seconds and in the 100 metres is 33 seconds. Fin-swimming is not yet an Olympic discipline, despite being recognized by the Olympic Committee, but we hope for it to be included in future Olympics, subject to all conditions being met.

There are also open-water competitions taking place in the sea, in fact I’m due to leave for Colombia soon to support the national team. Italy is one of the top nations having won numerous World and European championships. The major world powers are Eastern European nations such as Russia, Poland and Ukraine but also China is strong too. The last world championship saw the participation of 53 different countries and therefore it is a widespread sport.

Tell us more about Sweet Team Modena and the work they do alongside other aquatic and Olympic sports?

As a club we are mainly focused on youth development. In swimming we run an educational and basics programme, while continuing to remain competitive at a national level, with our athletes winning various medals at recent Italian championships. In a sport such as pentathlon, we have to coordinate training in the water, with other disciplines such as running, fencing, shooting and horse riding; we are at the top at national youth level having won the championship title, and one of our athletes participated in the U18 World Championship in Egypt this month. In synchronized swimming we are also very competitive. Our top athletes train six times a week in the water, in addition to the physical preparation they do in the gym. During the year from October to July they compete in over 25 competitions.

Top - Luca Tonelli (left) part of Sweet Team Modena

We've just had the Olympics, as an expert in aquatic sports, what did you see and what did you like about the games?

I followed the Olympics with great enthusiasm as one of the swimmers, Stefania Pirozzi, grew up and trained with Sweet Team Modena; she competed in the 4 x 200m crawl relay for Italy alongside Federica Pellegrini. Stefania was in her third Olympics and is also very strong at fin-swimming.

In general, I saw a very high athletic and technical level of Olympic competition but believe that the Covid pandemic highlighted the sports that are more organised and were able to prepare even in the midst of a world health emergency. I believe that the many successes of the Italian team were due to their ability to cope well with the problems of the last 18 months, with extended periods in which swimming pools were closed. Italy has a good, young team and I believe that the future bodes well for them.

The Olympics also showed that the nations most oriented towards sport as a socio-educational tool, such as China and the United States, are a step ahead. These countries approach sport with a completely different mentality, as it represents an important social opportunity, for example, in the case of American athletes ,sport can help gain you admittance to a prestigious university, or in China you can be admitted to one of their national centres of excellence; I had the chance to visit one of these structures and I can tell you that the level of organisation and the attention to sport is extremely high.

I think that being able to organize the Olympics, in the context of a world pandemic, was very important and the organization of the games in Japan was very efficient, both at the Olympics and at the Paralympics. The effort was enormous, and it is a good sign for world sport that it could be held so successfully.

Finally, as a sportsman, I followed many different events and celebrated the various successes of Italian athletes, in athletics, rowing, wrestling, sailing, cycling, etc.

As an athlete and manager, you have travelled the world for many years, can you tell us about any of your stranger experiences?

The world championships in Colombia come to mind, with preparation at altitude and time spent getting to know that fascinating country, it remains one of my most vivid memories. China is also a very special country for European athletes. A funny and curious experience in that country was when I was served snake at a gala dinner ...

Energy Travel is pleased to be able to organize visits for international schools and clubs, working alongside you and Sweet Team Modena. Tell us about what a touring team would experience there.

I am very much in favour of foreign exchanges and gaining experiences abroad. I encouraged my own daughter to travel and complete a year abroad, studying in the United States. On behalf of Swete Team Modena, I can promise an organized programme with training and competitions, alongside the many attractions of the Modena area, such as visiting Ferrari and Maserati, as well as cooking, food, art, nature and other sports, we can promise a unique experience here with us.

Published: Thursday 23 September 2021