Giulia Pellegrino, the warrior in a cap stronger than pain

Florence, June 27, 2025 – “Let faith be stronger than fear.” Faith as a secular trust in one’s own strength of mind. She has it tattooed on the skin of her back, it is the phrase that her mother repeated to her, already struck by an illness that would soon take her away. That phrase is not a memento, it is a manifesto. A lifestyle to which Giulia Pellegrino has tried to be faithful 24 hours a day, for three decades. Since, that is, as a three-year-old girl who had difficulty walking, at the Meyer pediatric hospital in Florence, Dr. Fernanda Falcini, a luminary in the field, diagnosed her with an autoimmune and deadly disease. Rheumatoid arthritis would accompany her forever. Giulia’s story begins like this, between doctors and the swimming pool. Pain and mourning, tears and grit, victories and joys. Above all, an indomitable will: “I will never give in to the illness. It is a battle but I want to win it” she promises, hardening her gaze. Sport, water polo, soon becomes the shield and sword to fight the dragon.

This year, a very special achievement because it is double, she won the championship with the Rari Nantes Florentia paralympic team and with the red and white team of able-bodied athletes she gained promotion from series B to series A2. A not insignificant detail: both teams won all the matches they played, both in the preliminary stages and in the finals. For the paralympic team, the season continues: in mid-July they fly to Terrassa, Barcelona, ​​to try to win a sort of Champions against Spanish and Italian opponents. Finally, at the beginning of autumn, the Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup are up for grabs.

The first memory of a swimming pool...

In the pool when I was little, I had to move my lower limbs as much as possible, swimming was perfect. I learned to kick my feet before I learned to swim.

The child and then young girl still learned to swim and did so well. Competitive swimming up to 18 years old.

"Then I decided to follow the example of my brother Erik, a water polo goalkeeper. At first I tried going forward but for my first coach Daniela Lavorini I was perhaps too impetuous and foul-prone, and also a bit hopeless in attack.

Years between the posts followed with the caps of Fiorentina Nuoto, Torre Pontassieve, Firenze Pallanuoto. Finally, the arrival at Rari of president Andrea Pieri in 2023 as second to the starting goalkeeper Caterina Banchelli.

Meanwhile the disease is constantly with her, in her, Giulia...

Lately it has become more and more sneaky, unpredictable. Ups and downs. Last year I suffered two serious muscle injuries that limited me from a competitive point of view. It was a very difficult year for me, but at the same time I also started training with the Paralympic team, the so-called ability, led on the poolside by two former valuable players, Laura Perego and Allegra Lapi. I made my debut by winning the Italian Cup, not bad...

By regulation, disabled water polo (which is not yet admitted to the Paralympics but will be in the near future) provides for a score for each athlete from one to four and a half.

“I have four, I can play both forward and in goal" smiles Giulia from her home in the greenery of Rignano sull'Arno , in the company of her husband Marco, married three years ago, and a beautiful big dog, a cross between a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler. Graduated in Biotechnology, she works in a chemical-pharmaceutical company in Reggello.

Are there any differences between winning with the Paralympic team and with the girls in the B series?

No. The feeling is the same, and in the matches I play with the same determination. I want, I would say better I have to win, and to do that I give the best of myself.

The determination she shows in the water is also a message that she wants to convey, or rather, impose on the disease.

Yes. It is a disease that cannot be seen from the outside, and sometimes it happens that those who do not know, those who do not know me, from the stands can confuse a moment of crisis and difficulty with a lack of concentration. Not all days are the same for those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, and often we find ourselves fighting not only against the disease but also against the indifference and lack of understanding of those around us. It happens that before getting up in the morning I have to spend a few minutes concentrating on deciding which side to get out of bed, to guess which ankle will best handle the pain. This last season I often played with completely blocked ankles and I had to go on with painkillers. However, I have always been very careful about showing the symptoms in the pool, because I do not want the disease to seem like an excuse. My disease must never be an alibi for a performance that may not be up to par. Even at school I sometimes felt different but I reacted as always: grit your teeth and move on”.

The ability team is made up of both men and women. In Rari Nantes Florentia, Federica D'Aquino plays besides her, and the coach and assistant are girls. In practice, an aquatic matriarchy...

It's an added value. And then facing male opponents, having to block shots thrown by men is a challenge within the challenge. The strength of our team, where athletes of different ages and disabilities play, is that we are friends, true friends inside and outside the pool. Compact, balanced formation, those on the bench when they jump into the water give 101 percent. And also the team now in A2 coached by Lucia Giannetti is a beautiful group, where I at 33 years old act as grandmother to my assistant, Margherita Caciagli, who is 14 years old.

A good thing and a bad thing...

My stubbornness is both a quality and its opposite. I have never given up, neither to illness nor to the losses I suffered too early, my father at 17 and my mother at 25. But sometimes I am also too stubborn and even become a maniac: if an unexpected event comes, I have to control it and overcome it in one way or another.

Besides water polo, family, work, do you have time for anything else?

They say (laughs) that my days last 36 hours! I like to take care of the house and the garden, go horseback riding and I am a civil protection volunteer with the Croce Azzurra of Pontassieve. I would like to start collaborating with Sportello Vanessa, a listening space for women victims of violence.

How much did sport help you in the face of disability?

Very much. And to the young, and the less young, who suffer from the same pathology as me I say do not hide, you must not live with the regret of not having tried. Fight with passion and courage, throw yourselves...

His future?

Ability team player, still. For A2 we'll see. And maybe with the extended family, I see myself as a mother.

Without fear, of course. Giulia Pellegrino has it written on her skin.

Int. Ed.