Fioravanti aims at the 2024 Games: “When I think about Tahiti, I get the chills already. I’ll be there”

“When I think about Paris 2024, which for us will be in Tahiti, I get the chills already. Now I only have to think about the qualifications, but I know for sure that I will be there” Leonardo Fioravanti has no doubts. The surfer who hails from Rome, fresh from his first Olympic experience at Tokyo 2020, is experiencing an excellent moment of form.

At the beginning of February, Fioravanti reached the final of a World Surf League stage for the first time in his career, finishing runner-up at the Billabong Pro Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii, defeated only by Australian Jack Robinson. A few days later he got as far as the round of 16 in the second leg of the tour, again in Hawaii, and was knocked out once more by Robinson. In the recent event in Leiria, Portugal, he suffered defeat in the last 16 at the hands of Barron Mamiya.

“Really a great start” admitted Fioravanti who was today busy at the Giulio Onesti Olympic Preparation Centre in Acqua Acetosa for the periodic neuromuscular and joint mobility tests of the upper and lower limbs, carried out by the technicians of the CONI Institute of Medicine and Sport Science, ahead of the forthcoming competition dates. “I competed in my first final, I am sixth in the World Surf League ranking after three stages, but the season is long, there is a lot to do and I have to keep pushing. I want to give everything, because starting well is important, but finishing at my best is crucial”.

At the end of the finals, scheduled to take place in September in California, the best 10 athletes will punch their ticket for Paris 2024, or rather Tahiti, where the Olympic medals of the French edition will be awarded (here #roadtoParis2024). “2023 is an important year because qualification is up for grabs” Fioravanti stressed. “There is the World Surf League and there are the World Surfing Games in El Salvador: the goal is to get the pass because if I think of the Games I already get the chills. I savoured the Olympic emotions in Japan; in 2024 I want to arrive even better prepared. Now I have to take it step by step and think only about qualification, but I am quite sure: I will participate in the Games, with the support of the federation, CONI, the Italia Team, the Fiamme Oro, the fans and the Italian surfers, I will make it”.