Photo: Instagram
Tommaso Manni
To celebrate 50 years Matteo Renzi returns as a runner. In four hours and ten minutes he managed to complete the Athens Marathon. Of course not a record time. “But a big challenge ten years after saving Greece,” he wrote on social networks. “Anyone who has ever finished a marathon knows that winning a challenge with oneself is beautiful, more than winning against someone else. In Brussels we defended Greece’s right to be in Euripa. I then thought that Athens needed Europe for many reasons. But Europe also needed Greece, especially for one reason: because there is no future without history, no development without culture, no community without politics.”
A forty-two kilometer run in this country tells you about the birth of the marathon and a small trophy at the entrance to the Panathinaiko stadium: “A girl gave me an Italian flag. And I thought about the fact that Italy and Greece may not be the countries with the strongest economies in the world, but they are two great cultural superpowers”.
And then the Italian leader, Viva, turned to his “sports story”, recalling that he had done other marathons in the past: “It was not easy to reach the finish line. The constant ups and downs tested my legs. I even thought about giving up but I refused. Those last meters combined strength and effort, pride and tears, smiles and pain”. Renzi started participating in marathons when he was mayor of Florence, in 2011. He was 36 years old but later than now. Experience teaches: “I drink a lot and don’t force it.”
