Rising Above: Larissa Iapichino's Leap into the Spotlight

Last chapter of the thrilling journey of "Zeta", the new original series by Red Bull that frames Generation Z through the dreams and fears of 5 Italian sports champions. After Matteo Berrettini, Alessandrina, Leonardo Fioravanti, Alessandro Mazzara, the fifth protagonist of this production is Larissa Iapichino, a long jump prodigy, the present and future of our National team. A life eternally in the spotlight for Larissa, already famous as a child due to a well-known TV commercial, a condition she never lived with great pleasure. "I must have been 4 or 5 years old and I had gone to visit my mother at Lake Bracciano - Iapichino recounts - and at the time I was already doing a commercial that made me very popular. A group of kids, they must have been 10 or 11 years old, recognize me and come towards me: I leaned against a wall, trying to hide, and stayed like that until they left. It wasn't malice, I did it because I was embarrassed." Paris 2024, qualification of the Azzurra 4x100 relay: "Confirmed the strength of our team." By nature very competitive, Larissa initially enrolled in artistic gymnastics, a choice consciously connected to the desire not to follow in her parents' footsteps, then comes the approach to athletics, and it is the beginning of an overwhelming passion. During the years spent in the youth national teams, she lives everything as a game and fun, until the crystalline talent of Iapichino decided otherwise: on February 20, 2021, at the Indoor Nationals in Ancona, she jumps 6.91, equaling the Indoor record of her mother (Fiona May) and setting the new world "Under 20" record. From that moment everything changes. After the first exploits, come pressures, difficulties, and related criticisms, such a dark moment that could risk stopping everything, yet Larissa does not give up and finally comes the turning point: "The turning point was in Istanbul, at the Indoor European Championships: a new kind of awareness, the perception of how I was and how I had managed to come out of it, a bit like having my life back in my hands" - continues Iapichino. Who concludes: "In that moment I just told myself, if you do a foul it doesn't matter, it's perfectly fine, just try, jump, go free. I did 6.97: my heart exploded, the first absolute international medal is a huge emotion. It was just screams - "Oh my God I can't believe it" - almost my dad was about to jump down from the stands. It was truly a symbolic moment." After the rebirth, a maturity has set in that should give Larissa the right push to embark on the strenuous path towards independence: "I believe I am slowly building my path: detaching from parents and taking flight on my own. This path is made of many setbacks, many joys, but it's really beautiful because it's like that, it has to be a roller coaster, otherwise it would be boring. I am not just the daughter of my mom and dad, I am Larissa who is slowly making space for herself, in the world that was her parents'."