Italian swimmer Benedetta Pilato, the European Record holder in the 50 breaststroke, talked with SwimSwam Italy about her return to training after a COVID-19 infection. She was one of a number of swimmers who tested positive after participating in the Italian Championships in December.
During the first day of competition at that meet, Pilato set the new 100m breaststroke Italian record in long course with a 1:06.02, also earning a qualification to her first Olympic games.
Benedetta speaks about how she worked with her coach Vito D’Onghia worked to build up to the longer race, after excelling mostly in the 50 in her early internaitonal career.
“For real, we always had worked towards the 100 meters. The first half of the race has always been easy to me, in some natural way. To swim the 100 I’m trying to bring up my frequency and also to learn how to manage my energies. As a sprinter the energies run out after a while. I’m happy because at the Italian championships I usually couldn’t express myself at best during the race. “
The Italian championships were held in a finals-only fromat without due to COVID-19. The Italian sprinter admits that this format was good to achieve the Olympic standard while she’s continuing to build her endurance. She believes she that with a little work on some mistakes she made, she’s capable of breaking under 1.06.
In October she was the youngest athlete to participate in the second edition of ISL in Budapest, and about this experience she says:
“For me it was an amazing and growing up experience both as an athlete and as a human being. I’ve had to stay far from home for 43 day but I had the chance to meet many champions. It was very challenging comparing myself with them every day.
It was an overwhelming and amusing context because we competed not only for ourselves but for the team. The rules in the bubble were strict but they made a safe competition possible.”
The ISL, swum in short course meters with extra turns, did expose a weakness she still has underwater, but at 16 there’s still plenty of time for her to build the strength needed to be good there.
Still, Pilato, racing for the league runners-up from Energy Standard, finished tied for 49th in the regular season MVP standings even as one of the league’s youngest swimmers.
Now Benedetta is focused on finding her balance even thought she isn’t worried about time, she has enough of it before the Olympics.
Thinking about Tokyo, she has no expectation, just being there is already a success. She has never followed the old editions of the Olympics and as she was a child she didn’t watched races on TV. Whatever happens will be a surprise for her.
If you can go sub 30 you are definitely capable of going sub 1.06
I think her and that young russian girl (Evgenia Chikunova) are big time medal threats at Tokyo.