Gian Mario Migliaccio, a Finswimmer of the past [2010]

Hi Gian Mario, maybe not everyone knows that you were a high level Finswimmer athlete in the 80s, tell us a little about your career from the beginning until the end of the 90s.

Hi, the competitive “career” unfortunately lasts too little indeed. I started swimming at the age of 5 at the pool of the Fiamme Gialle sports group in Rome where my father was the coach, after moving to Cagliari I continued to do competitive swimming with alternate successes. Along the way of sport, I also did canoeing. With great sacrifices due to very small water spaces, I activated with great passion the finswimming path. From 1982 to 1989 I did swimming and finswimming at the same time, leaving out swimming. In the Pinnato I was part of the national youth team at 2 European championships and also once in the senior one. My times, if I remember correctly, were on the 50m 17.36, on the 100imm 40.08 and on the 100sf 42.12 while and I won the silver medal at the Italian Championships. From 89, thanks to a strong tendonitis in my feet, I had to pass my hand at the Swimming where I dedicated myself to the half-bottom in open water up to win, in 1990, the Italian Team Championship with my company Nuoto Club Cagliari. After one or two years I left everything, very reluctantly, and I turned to the world of work by starting my business in the field of Communication that I still lead. Too bad for the national free water in swimming, they established it after a short time and I was among the favorites … too bad, I still think about it. You are currently in the Classic Swimming environment.

What do you do mainly?

In parallel with business I continued my studies in the sports field, the passion remained intact. After Isef and integration, with 12 exams, in Physical Sciences I took the specialist degree in Sport Science at the University of Cagliari and then I won the competition for the PhD in Physiology and Sport Science at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. I am currently an Adjunct Professor in Sport Natatori in the three-year and specialist degrees of Motor Sciences in Cagliari. Do you still follow Finned Swimming?

What is your favorite athlete (of the past or even current)?

Surely Vandini, Galantucci and Bettazzoni among men and Barbara Nanni among women. The names of the present do not know them very well, unfortunately.

What was the experience or the most beautiful race in your career?

The Messina Strait, made 4 times, where in my first edition I was 15 and my “boatman” believing I was among the last … He had lost me. I only swam all the way to the finish line, arriving in the top 10, and anxious to tell it to my mother at the risk of letting her stay on the ground … Which almost happened as soon as she knew the company of the son 🙂

Unsuitable question: Finswimming or Classic Swimming, which one do you prefer and why?

Surely swimming has more followers and is more considered by the media and public opinion but the “thrill” of the speed of the pinnate remains inside. Pinnato’s environment … did you like it?

Are you always in touch with your old friends?

Thanks to facebook today I have many old friends in contact

You have a website? Do you think the network can help the development of finswimming?

The web helps everything, just use it well. My blog talks about a lot of things, even sports, and it’s my surname dot it, so http://www.migliaccio.it.

Sport and young people … what advice would you give to an athlete who is starting to practice swimming? Finswimming, or any other sport?

Sport is the most bestial, exhausting, harmful thing that exists. It takes away all your free time, energy and motivation. There are days where you would like to throw away your swimsuit and cap from the 10th floor and throw it all away, there are days where you look and see that you have lost the most important race you have been preparing for a year and you say … “but who made me do it “. There are days where you wonder … “because I’m doing it”. And this is what you can think of in the present. But if you did sport, the real one, and if you really made some important sacrifices, you won and you loved yourself , you lost and you suffered but then you trained even harder … Then, in 10 or 20 years, when you look back you will say only one thing: thanks sport. In these years of 2000 it is hard for parents to play sports to the children, it is very hard. But the biggest school of life is the sport, the real one, where it is taught that nothing is given in life. But it can be achieved. And there is nothing more important.

Finswimming in Sardinia … some time ago there were also important races in the beautiful waters of the island. What happened to finswimming in those parts? Currently there is some policy regarding this?

It has been hard to fight for years for a water space crushed by the swimming societies and after our exit nobody in cagliari has resumed, to Sassari someone has tried us with good results.