Rai, sport and the voices of Italy

“Zoff, Gentile, Cabrini, Oriali, Collovati”… Nando Martellini’s voice already echoes in the memory of Italians, even the youngest who have never seen these idols play. They are necessary for history to become memory, for facts to become images a narrative voice and a horizon of meaning able to bring together the fate of a people in a common narrative. Today marks the seventieth anniversary of the first Rai broadcast, which, with indelible voices and epoch-making broadcasts, brought iconic moments in the memory of Italians in sport.

Enrico Ameri, Nando Martellini, Sandro Ciotti, Bruno Pizzul, to name just a few aedi of local sports, while among the programs they count each other Sports Sunday, Process on stage (by Sergio Zavoli), 90th minute, All football minute by minute, The Monday Trial – complete with a platinum-selling Carmelo Bene – and the latest Those who play football.

Already on the first day of Italian radio and television, Fulvia Colombo's voice announces this at 3:45 p.m Sports afternoon, and we immediately understand how sporting passion will enter the daily life and soul of Italians; Also in 1954, the first World Cup was televised, while two years later the first Winter Olympics took place in Cortina, which will take place again in 2026, the year of their seventieth anniversary. I am the first events, the first international broadcasts, which, within a few years, become a collective ritual, para-religious occasions that mark the seasons of an entire nation and can contribute to the construction of its biography.

To this day, there are countless successes in the family album of Italian sport that cannot be missed the first Davis Cup in the history of the Italian team, won in Santiago de Chile after playing the final for three sets in the red jersey, in open disagreement with General Pinochet; In fact, to take part in the Chilean edition of the Cup, the team had to withstand national political and media pressure as well as the cries on the street “You don’t play volleyball with the executioner Pinochet”. A symbolic moment for Italy in these years, amid the leaden and red years of excitement, anger and protest.

The turning point between two decades was the magnificent comeback of one Pietro Mennea gaunt and emaciated but more powerful than ever, which ran until it almost blew up in Moscow in 1980, Southern arrow destined for heaven the comment a very excited Paolo Rosi walked with powerful steps; However, if the sporting Italy of the 80s had an expression, it would be in Tardelli's heroic and liberating scream World Championship of 1982, which will be followed in terms of course and historical appeal by that of Grosso in 2006.

That from Sketch It was the carnal and instinctive scream of an entire nation, the almost erotic joy of a country that has probably never been so united, an explosion that could make the President of the Republic jump from his chair PertiniUntil then, in a quiet institutional role aimed at the third goal Pen Altobelli will devote himself body and soul to the famous “They won’t take us with them anymore”! practically shouted in the face of Spanish King Juan Carlos.

At the end of the century the cries of the steak Galeazzi, who seemed to be pushing with your own voice the Abbagnale brothers at the gold in Seoul in 1988: it was neither the first nor the only great appearance at the microphone of the former rower, who looked at his beloved sport with eyes full of ardent love. Then there is the generation of volleyball phenomena, the sublime force of Jury Chechi, Lord of the rings which rose in Atlanta amidst the reporter's dispassionate admonitions in a vivid, perfect, divine performance.Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!“.

Maybe a mild encouragement compared to the big one Adriano De Zan in ecstasy for Pantani who does this”the nothingness” on the 1998 tour and then in tears when the Pirate had to stop in 1999 because of high hematocrit; Tour's voice, broken with tears, made a point of pointing out that “it does not mean that the athlete is doped“. The sporting triumphs of the Tricolor are then endless, inspired by the ancient rivalry between them Coppi and Bartali (with the extraordinary participation of Alcide De Gasperi) to the meticulous competitive spirit of Paola Pigni, from the statuesque grace of Alberto Tomba to the Olympic beauty of Federica Pellegrini, the double gold of Tamberi and Jacobs in a quarter of an hour at Tokyo 2020 and finally the historic return of the Davis Cup to Italy.

The space of a television screen remains limited to collect and perpetuate the sporting exploits and exploits of generations and generations of athletes: for this reason, as in ancient times, they have honored poets and gentlemen of sports narrative, the bards of competitive sports. whose comment looks like true texts of technical gesture, songs of the sports miracle. It seems inconceivable to think of certain reporters and share the criticism that various Pasolini, Chomsky and Gadamer (who were unfortunately right on most points) directed at television:

their goods Voices and souls of other timesof wonder and nobility in joy and yet also in drama.

For example, touch the sensitivity, with which Sandro Ciotti announces the tragic death of 39-year-old Scirea, remains a handbook of civilization in the age of pornography of the self and feelings, constantly vulgarized and humiliated on social media. Today, when images are becoming more and more numerous and quantity dominates quality, it is important to remember a piece of Italian history that refined the art of words and storytelling, turning images into icons and individual moments into a common one Fate has raised: therefore, above all, best wishes Mama Rai.