Two weeks ago, Marco Menchinelli was named as the Italian National Junior Team Head Coach by the Italian Swimming Federation (FIN). He follows Walter Bolognani who held this position since 2008.
Menchinelli, 63, worked in the Italian Federation with the 400 free women’s relay at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
SwimSwam Italy met Marco a few days before the start of the Italian SCM Age Group Championships from March 31st to April 5th, and asked him about his project with all the young talented athletes.
“This is not a brand new project but it continues an already marked path with the aim of bringing this team to win even more”, said the new head coach, who is now the director for all the age groups. ”The stopwatch shouldn’t be forgotten but it’s more important to work with the people, the human being. I’ll be in contact with all the coaches of the teams because they do the daily work with the athletes.”
Menchinelli opened up about his only fear. “We don’t know what and how much damage these two years of COVID have done, perhaps we will see it later, there will certainly be an impact but we can’t understand it now.”
Menchinelli spoke about the young talents who can both races with the junior team and big international competition, he said that “we (the junior team) must help them to find their space and not let them feel alone.”
He also spoke about the late-blossoming talents, encouraging all young Italian athletes to “work hard, and don’t give up.
“It happens in all sports, the coaches benefit from the result of their athletes and there is a hurry to get it, it also happens in football, but we need to work on the fundamentals. Coaches need to have long-term plans to win when it really matters.”
Menchinelli also shared with SwimSwam his motto: Work hard, but always with a smile on your face, have fun.”
You can watch the full interview here (in Italian)
