Sport creates a family, it creates ties and relationships, even among those who are not kin. We all belong to it because our dreams occupy the same horizon.

The record-breaking duo Mennea–Vittori had a distant relationship. As coach and athlete they were never on first-name terms. During training they were close, but strangers elsewhere. They went to Mexico City with the same aim, to win the 200 meters. And they succeeded on 12 September 1979. Mennea’s time, 19.72, is still a European record. It stood as a world record for almost seventeen years, until 1996 when the American Michael Johnson ran it in 19.66. Some records not only shatter times but pierce the years. That day the two men looked at each other. The younger was twenty-seven. They had to part, saying their last words to each other, because there comes a point in life where you come to the parting of the ways. They would meet again; both were on the verge of something. ‘I’ll do it this time,’ said the young man. Vittori was astonished. He had never seen him so confident and optimistic.

It had just stopped raining. Mennea ran as he had never run in his life and beat the world. He left behind his childhood, his complexes, the south. There are curves that put you off your stride, you falter and feel small, as if walls were rising around you. And there are others where you burst through into happiness. Pietro Paolo Mennea from Barletta ran his curve without losing speed, his left shoulder slightly lowered.

And that day Italy discovered another Coppi. He raced, but not on a bike. He came from the south; he was thin, a little crooked, very twisted. Mennea had behind him an Italy that studied; it was no longer amateurish. Homespun, but also competitive. His factory was the National Athletics School in Formia. The NASA of Italian sport. In Formia, they invented, tested and discovered the future. And they developed the science of records.

Simeoni arrived there at twenty-two. ‘The room in the guest quarters contained a bed and a wardrobe. It was so dreary that I repainted it myself. There was no gym equipment. We asked the workers there for help. We explained what we needed and they started building the equipment: the sand belt, the iron boot and other equipment. They didn’t ask for money in return, just begged us to do well’. Jumping, love and fantasy. Made in Italy advanced in the world of sport. All together with passion.