ROME (ITALPRESS) – 2025 is the year of construction for Antonio Colamonici, the new technical director of the Italian Rowing Federation. The 53-year-old from Naples, who was proclaimed the world’s best coach by World Rowing in 2024, re-embraces Italy after eight successful years at the helm of Romania: eight medals between Tokyo 2020 (one gold and two silver medals) and Paris 2024 (2 golds and 3 silvers), the conclusion of a winning cycle and now the will to restart another, equally ambitious one, with President Davide Tizzano’s FIC. “I live my job as an opportunity to teach kids what are the rules that then apply in life. In these eight years in Romania I’ve had a lot of fun, I’ve changed the lives of many kids,” says Colamonici. “When I got there, the situation was not good, the men hadn’t been in the finals for 20-plus years, the women had won a bronze in the last two Olympics. We built so much, we became a powerhouse, winning eight medals in two editions of the Games, between Tokyo and Paris. My cycle there was over.” “When I was offered the role of technical director of Italy, it was a very stimulating opportunity for me,” he continues, “The pleasure of returning home was great. We have to relaunch ourselves: the idea of being able to repeat what I did with the Romanian national team, of being able to positively influence the history of other athletes and female athletes and be the architect of another rebirth, stimulated my return so much.” The top appointments for the blue 2025 will be in Shanghai (China) from Sept. 21-28 for the Olympic and Paralympic Absolute World Championships for the ‘flat’ (flat water) sector and in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) from Oct. 23-26 for the beach sprint sector. “In the first two gatherings in Piediluco we worked mentally, looking for harmony between us. We know that this year will be very difficult, extraordinary results may not come, but it will certainly be a time in which we will operate according to a growth that we will find again during the quadrennium. The Pararowing adventure also begins, a challenge that excites me. To make it grow, it takes a real vocation, which Paola Grizzetti and her staff certainly have.” Beach sprinting is ready to make its debut in the Los Angeles Olympic program: “It is an Olympic reservoir of three medals, which is a lot, and therefore it deserves the utmost attention. We have no data from which to start for a strategy; we know that a large number of athletes from ‘flat’ rowing will move to beach. I decided to open a commission composed of coaches who already had experience in beach sprinting and physiologists and athletic trainers from other disciplines, available thanks to the support of the Acqua Acetosa School of Sport. Together we will do careful analysis,” Colamonici concludes, “to understand what are the real parameters that condition this discipline.”- Photo Federcanottaggio Press Office -(ITALPRESS).
