"The dream would be a hat-trick at the Games". Martina Caironi said it a few weeks ago, at the European Championships in Bydgoszcz. The (fast) girls of Italy have done it again. At the Paralympic Games in Tokyo: it is a trio in the 100 (cat. t63), gold, silver and bronze to color an unforgettable day for Italian sport.

The gold was won by Ambra Sabatini, the 19-year-old from Porto Ercole in Tuscany, who was able to improve her world record (14"11). Then the veteran, the Olympic champion of London and Rio, Martina Caironi. And the bronze is Monica Contrafatto, who dedicates the medal to Afghanistan, where she was injured when she was on a military mission: "Because what happened to me took a lot away from me but gave me more".

On June 5, 2019, Sabatini was run over by a car while she was on a scooter with her dad headed to athletic training on the roads of Argentario. After the amputation of her left leg above the knee, her goals changed. First with swimming and cycling, then with her athletics - she was regional champion in 800 and 1500 - until today's masterpiece.

It was a final complicated by rain. "You have no idea," admits Caironi, who crowns Sabatini for the future. "The technical level today is high. Ambra, at 19, has done what I have done in a career," said on the eve of the Games the 31-year-old from Bergamo who in 2007 was the victim of a moped accident suffered the amputation of her left leg and had to relearn to walk. "But it doesn't burn me, far from it, it's the recognition to many battles carried out. Now there is attention to our world, even in the media. Cash prizes have been introduced, we have doctors, physiotherapists and nurses in the national team, some of us are helped by managers and sponsors. And those are just examples. It matters more than the fact that someone can beat me. Sports, after all, is competitiveness. Jealous? Proud."