Daniele Garozzo has announced his retirement from competitive activity. The Olympic champion in individual foil at the Rio 2016 Olympics has decided to stop at the age of 31, communicating his decision through a post on Instagram less than three months from the Paris 2024 Games.
Garozzo's Announcement
"The time has come to announce my retirement from competitive activity and there are many emotions I feel. It is a decision arising from circumstances beyond my control, my heart has 'injured' itself, but I accept it with serenity. In all these years, I have been fortunate to live an extraordinary adventure in the world of sport, culminating in the win of an Olympic gold and silver. It has been a journey made of sacrifices, commitment, and passion, joys, satisfactions, and friendships I could have never imagined. I remember as if it were yesterday when I started practicing this wonderful sport. If I close my eyes, I still see myself in the garage gym of Acireale thrusting millions of lunges against a dummy, dreaming of one day winning the Olympics. Those who know me know how much I love fencing. I have loved it with tireless dedication and with all my heart, and I have committed so much, but all this has led me to the results I had dreamed of".
"Now, in closing this chapter of my life as an athlete, I am grateful for every moment lived and for the experiences that have made me the person I am today - added the 31-year-old from Sicily. Looking to the future, I had already decided some time ago to dedicate my professional life to medicine, today with an even clearer goal: to study and disseminate the cardiac conditions, often unknown, that can afflict the sports population. My personal experience has shown me how important it is to carry out an effective awareness campaign on these issues to ensure better prevention and optimal management of athletes at all levels. I am aware of being the luckiest guy I know. I have realized my sports dreams, I have traveled around the world with extraordinary friends, and I found my best friend and life partner on the fencing pistes. Many have helped me along this path, and I would like to thank them all, today as I have always done in the past. Above all, my Master Fabio Galli, who taught me first to become a man, then a champion. Even if on the piste everyone saw only me, we were always two thrusting and taking those lunges. Thank you all for accompanying me along this wonderful journey. Even if the competitive one concludes here, I am excited to start the next chapter of my life with the same spirit of dedication and passion", concluded Garozzo.
Words from the President of the Italian Fencing Federation
The President of the Italian Fencing Federation, Paolo Azzi, commented on Garozzo's retirement as follows: "Daniele Garozzo has been, remains, and will always be an icon of Italian fencing. And even in these hours of infinite sorrow for the announcement of his retirement from competitive activity, I feel immense pride in knowing that a Champion with a capital C like him represents an example that our sport must be proud of. Olympian and Doctor, he is living such a delicate, terrible moment with a clarity, seriousness, and human depth of a giant".
"Dani is a pride of our sport. A champion who has built himself with work, sacrifice, dedication. The intelligence and sensitivity that have always distinguished him, since he was a boy, have led him to the highest achievement an athlete can reach, the Olympic gold, and between that triumph in Rio 2016 and the silver won in Tokyo in 2021 he found the strength to carry on, and brilliantly conclude a few months later, his studies in Medicine with the highest grades. Yes, we would have all liked to see him still protagonist in competition, on the stage of the Paris Games, and the news of his stop was a tremendous blow for all of us. But Daniele Garozzo is a Champion on the piste and in life, and so, in telling us that from his story fencing starts another positive and precious message, regarding the importance of cardiac prevention, he gave us another extraordinary lesson".
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