On Domitilla Picozzi’s Wikipedia page, there are more titles won than information about her. This subtly emphasizes the pragmatism of someone who quietly achieves her goals without ever invoking the rhetoric of sacrifice. However, determination and sweat have always been the driving force in her life. This is well known by anyone who continues to compete at a high level in sports while attending university.

Just like Domitilla, an attacker for the Italian women's national water polo team and captain of SIS Roma. "My mother put me in the water when I was only a year old," says the 26-year-old, while heading to one of the final training sessions before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. It was all thanks to her paediatrician. "She advised my mother to take me to the pool, and since then water has always been my element." It has been so since the beginning when she fell in love with water polo by watching the training of the local team.

"I have always admired coach Daniele Cianfriglia’s passion and I have learnt a lot from it" Domitilla recalls. "There were times when the pool felt more like home than my home. This can only happen through sport because it allows you to face significant challenges. On one hand, growing up in such an environment is a great fortune. On the other hand, without my family, none of this would have been possible, especially in a crowded and chaotic city like Rome."

For years, Domitilla has travelled across the capital from north to south. Today, she trains in Ostia, at the SIS Roma hub. "Being a captain is a great honour and a great responsibility, too. You must lead by example. Luckily I have had a great coach like Marco Capanna and excellent teammates." In the last five years, as a student-athlete at Università Cattolica, she has won the Italian Cup three times with the SIS Roma team and earned bronze medals with the national team at the European Championships in Split, Croatia and the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.

In March, Domitilla graduated in Medicine and Surgery. "I believe sport has helped me immensely over the years because studying was a way to release the stress of sports activities, and water polo played the same role during exam periods," says the champion. "The most challenging part was the beginning. In the first year, I seriously thought I had to choose: carrying on sport and studying no longer seemed feasible. But my parents helped me, and in the end, I made it, thanks also to the professors."

Professors like Francesco Franceschi and Marcello Candelli, with whom she chose to prepare her thesis in Emergency Medicine. Or Professor Daniela Chieffo, with whom Domitilla still visits the Gemelli Hospital with the national team to meet children in Pediatric Neuropsychiatry, Oncology, and Neurosurgery. One of her greatest victories was the bronze medal at the 2023 World Championships, while she was preparing for her final exams in Medicine. "We came from the bronze medal at the European Championships in 2022. But also from a tough blow, the failure to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. We had a reference point, the United States. We trained an entire summer with the Stars and Stripes flag by the pool. And when we met and beat the Americans in the quarterfinals, who hadn’t lost a quarter in 15 years, it was unforgettable."

Then there are the victories with SIS Roma, such as the third Italian Cup won in April as underdogs. "2024 is the year of fulfilled dreams—my degree, the Italian Cup, and now my first Olympics. Being a professional athlete is a great fortune. I would like to start my specialisation, and I will probably have to set a list of my priorities. But next season I will still be in the pool." But first, there is "a childhood dream," as she calls it. Those Olympics that "come after many highs and many lows." Those that "cause anxiety, but it’s a good kind of anxiety." Those that "channel all positivity because you have to be ready," because "Italy is a team that plays very well when we are together and when we are in the water for each other."

Carlo Silipo’s team is a young national team, with 11 Olympic debutants out of 13, and the first match against France, in Paris, will be extremely challenging. But the Olympic dream is within reach, and today Domitilla says "brava" to that little girl her mother put in the pool at such a young age and who never left the water. "I say 'brava' because she never lost heart, she always kept the spark alive inside her. Even when 48-hour days would have been needed." Which is something not written on Wikipedia, yet it’s visible in her smile, as she closes her bag for yet another training session, ready to leave for Paris.