Trying to summarize in a few lines the relationship I had with the coaches who accompanied my career is complex.

Essentially today, at 40, I can say I am the result of the combination of all those who shaped my character and expanded my skills, managing to contain and direct the barbarian that instinctively lurked within me.

So, I will focus on the combination of elements highlighted in the splendid series “The Winning Lunge,” which faithfully represented my life and the powerful bond I had with Maestro Oleg Pouzanov.

It is often said that the human depth possessed by some people somehow alters the perception of measurements.

The maestro was as tall as me (1.81 cm) or perhaps a little more, yet he seemed to loom gigantic every evening among the dozens of fencing strips at Club Scherma Roma.

The beacon in the darkness.

I arrived a bit disoriented in Rome from Catania, a 22-year-old with some rare experience in the youth national team on my resume. Not much.

In reality, I was already worn out from a thousand battles gone wrong.

I immediately found the enormous technical content inherent in his fencing proposal attractive.

For me, an “all crooked wardrobe that moves,” as he initially defined me, the opportunity to learn the art of Olympic fencing from someone perceived as a myth in our environment was unmissable.

He brought an impressive sports resume, having coached dozens of champions from Russia to Italy. Many of the athletes whose feats I imitated as a child had passed under his expert guidance.

Mind you, there are fencers who are light and elastic, elegant and with harmonious movements. Then there are those like me, a rough brawler with an instinctive propensity for a brawl rather than a dialogue, one of those you always hear coming from the noise they make.

This person, Oleg, must have had supernatural patience with me, like someone inlaying or sculpting in the most hostile material. Day after day, with great care, he created a multiple world champion and Olympic silver medalist.

A thousand times, he could have unleashed his frustration on me in any of the difficult moments we faced on and off the strip.

After all, I was a difficult student, always angry, hating everyone because the senior national team didn’t notice me.

Additionally, the relationship with my then-girlfriend wasn’t working anymore, and family and friends were left behind in Sicily.

I was a complicated pupil and a lousy subject, essentially.

Fortunately, there was Oleg to bring balance, to withstand my impact, the bastion and rearguard, the leadership of everything I fought for and that had not yet found meaning or realization.

Initially, I just fought on the strip, fought again and again.

But something, day after day, week after week, changed sharply and unequivocally.

The Russian glacier had strengthened the volcano burning within me; every physical and mental energy was now channeled into the technical gesture and the use of levers.

He had implanted in me a devastating ability to exploit the motor skills of my opponent. It was a drug for me. As soon as I understood the picture, I realized that nothing could stop me anymore because I was already fast and determined, and now I had become very skilled.

Throughout this, there was always immense respect for the roles.

He the maestro, and I the student.

Even in the days following the victory of the first individual world title (Catania, October 12, 2011), the atmosphere between us in the gym was the same; we were people who worked.

Each in his field without ever trespassing.

Who has to break the strip (me) and who directs and shapes his creation (him).

I am sure that the maestro must have had his weaknesses, insecurities, and fears somewhere… yet I never perceived anything other than that monolith of determination and resources where I could gather the most precious stones for me.

Always ready for competitive or personal advice, only if I requested the personal one.

Nothing better than a coach being a coach.

Only and only that.

I loved you professionally, maestro.

Then, on that cursed day in early December 2015, you left forever.

You entered my life with a slow and inexorable progression, and you disappeared like lightning in the clouds of my emotional storm.

All because of that serious liver disease that you also hid from my wedding, two months before you left.

I thought you were stronger than all this and unbreakable.

It is terribly destabilizing to see strong people to whom you are closely connected succumb because perhaps you expect falls from those who are weak, empathetic, sensitive, perhaps.

But a good maestro always leaves a profound trace. And from the day after, I continued our fight not alone but working with the coaches who respected you and learned so much from you.

From Pisa to Rome, from the Di Ciolo school to Andrea Giommoni and his brother Stefano on the other side.

The much-desired Olympic medal (silver in Rio 2016) and the second individual world title in foil arrived. Only me, like Edoardo Mangiarotti and no one else. Mission definitely accomplished, my maestro.

I know I made you proud, and as you know, I cried for you only with the Olympic medal around my neck, never before and never after.

For the rest, as you would have wanted, I continued to fight hard, always a wardrobe… but thanks to you, much less crooked.