Euro 2022 winner Alessia Russo on making history, inspiring a generation and that viral backheel goal
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Alessia Russo is sitting next to me at the awards ceremony. I’ve got her two years to go before she has another chance to win an Olympic medal — in Brazil 2016, two years after her London Games. But she has had three.
On August 13, 2014, she was in the Paralympic Athlete of the Year category at the 2012 London Games. That’s a pretty special honour, and we’re both sitting at the very same table in her honor, waiting to hear if she was voted the flag-bearer at the opening ceremony. And then I ask her.
“A new career’s a dream come true,” she tells me with a smile. “It’s an amazing feeling. I’m so thankful that they chose me — not only for the Paralympic dream, but for my own personal dream: to be able to inspire other people.”
She does a little self-deprecating grin, acknowledging that when this whole Paralympic thing started, she took some flack: “I had a moment of doubt the day I won the world’s first medal for the women’s swimming. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m finally doing something that I love and I’ve done something for the last three years, so I’m not being criticized for this. I’m going to enjoy it, and I’ve earned it.’ But I quickly learned that I would get criticized for not accepting help, and not saying ‘thank you’ to people who help me.”
Alessia Russo
