ROME (ITALPRESS) – A real-life tale, between irony and bitterness: Elena Pantaleo, Italian and European kickboxing champion and Coni national councilor, described on social media what happened to her on the evening of Nov. 6, in Rome, in front of The Space cinema. “I was there chatting when I realize that my backpack/suitcase (which I had placed on the wall a few meters behind us) was gone. I then look at the app where it is and see my bag moving away from my location,” she writes on her social media. “I run to the Carabinieri, show the app and ask for help. ‘We can go with the car to the given location, but you can’t come with us and we can’t take your phone there. ‘Okay but since it’s moving if I’m not with you you won’t be able to block itò I insist, realizing it’s useless. ‘I’ll go aloneà.” “‘No,’ recounts still the Sicilian-born champion, daughter of Cassation magistrate Daniela Borsellino, ‘at this point we are obliged to intervene and you must give us your papers so we can identify you. ‘Can’t you just let me run? Do we have to waste five precious minutes?’ ‘Yes.'” “Having done this very useful rigmarole with the Carabinieri (who leave with a car toward Via Torino) I get on a scooter and rush to Termini where I guessed the thief was going,” continues Pantaleo, who explains that he also asked Army soldiers for help, in vain. “I finally see him, one with my bag on his shoulders. I think about going back to the Army, but in those three minutes it takes, I might lose sight of him, and they wouldn’t go looking for him again. So I keep my distance, wait, watch him. He lays the bag behind a pillar, next to some sleeping people, and walks away. I walk slowly, act indifferent, grab it and run with my heart racing and adrenaline shot to my brain.” In the backpack “were pc, clothes, pajamas, makeup, creams (which by now cost a fortune too). To buy everything back would have cost me at least 700-1000 euros!” Eventually the backpack returned to its rightful owner. “I feel like Batman,” he notes, admitting that his thoughts in those 20 minutes “went to the national team’s tracksuit…it’s the very first tracksuit they gave me when I joined the national team in 2011. They don’t make it anymore and I use it for traveling because it is made of technical fabric and very comfortable. I thought I would never be able to buy it again and my heart clenched more than the computer.”
– photo Elena Pantaleo -(ITALPRESS).
