Last week our students had the pleasure of chatting informally with Lorenzo Zazzeri, who won silver for Italy at the 2020 Summer Olympics and bronze this past summer in Paris.
Lorenzo spoke about the ups and downs of his exciting career as a pro swimmer, as well as his work as a painter and the book he recently published, Laurearsi Campioni (“Graduating as Champions”).
The students in the Italian class of Professor Francesca Bea, who organized the event along with Italian Department Coordinator Loredana Tarini, had this to say about it:
Many of us in that room would have never imagined that we would get the opportunity to be able to meet and talk with an Olympic athlete, especially as part of learning Italian. This is one of the unique experiences of studying abroad and becoming immersed in the culture and achievements of a country. It helped us realize that we could understand more than we thought and the open Q&A helped break the hesitation of having a normal conversation in Italian. Even in a more advanced conversation, practicing using context clues to piece together certain parts of the lecture was highly beneficial. I don’t think we could have gotten a better immersive experience as we got to know about the life of an Italian athlete and how it differs from the US.
The students in Antonella Salvia’s advanced language class wrote their comments about Lorenzo’s talk in Italian:
Penso che sia stato generoso da parte di Lorenzo condividere la sua esperienza con noi…Sono rimasto stupito dall’umiltà di Lorenzo. Si presentava come una persona umile e amichevole. Non c’era arroganza o freddezza in lui.
Robert Salvato
La cosa che mi ha colpito durante questo incontro sono stati i commenti di lorenzo sulla salute mentale nello sport. ….Ho imparato che la famiglia e la comunità sono molto importanti nello sport e nella vita. Penso che sia importante avere un’attività diversa da una professione. Per Lorenzo, questa è l’arte.
Alexandra Meier
Alla mia domanda “come gestisci lo stress quando hai una gara”, ha risposto che usa la tecnica della visualizzazione, dove immagini ogni parte della gara che va perfettamente. Voglio provare a utilizzare questa tecnica nella mia vita.
Lucas Catilina-Rebucci
Mi piace come Lorenzo usa l’arte per calmare la mente. Penso che l’equilibrio mentale sia una parte importante del successo nello sport. Lorenzo è un uomo intelligente.
Robby Cooney
