On Monday, just before the 2025 Men’s Solo Tech final, the 2024 world champion Giorgio Minisini of Italy took a few moments update us on his life and share his perspective on men’s artistic swimming.
Italian artistic swimming pioneer Giorgio Minisini has been a fixture at the world championships from 2015, when men were first allowed to compete, all the way through Doha 2024. Yet his four gold, four silver, and two bronze medals are only part of his legacy.
This week, Minisini returned to the world championships as an ambassador. On the afternoon of the Men’s Solo Free routine (in which he was the 2024 world champion), he took a few moments to chat.
These days, to be honest, he said, “I am really enjoying this time off without the pressure, but I was missing the vibes so this year I have been watching the World Cup events and other competitions. Being here as an ambassador allows me to share the joy of the other athletes.
“Now I watch the other athletes work and I really enjoy the atmosphere. I enjoy with them. It’s a very special experience.
“It would be very difficult to come back in the water again. Of course, the swimming pool is my home. I did [artistic swimming] for 20 or more years. One can never say [never]. Right now what I want to achieve is to let the athletes have the best experience they can. I want to keep working for the athletes. That’s my goal now, working for the athletes!”
As for being a pioneer, Minisini said, “I really think that the medals I won at the world championships came with important responsibilities. I received a lot from the sport, and this is my way to give back.”
It wasn’t so easy back in the day.
“When I started swimming there was no opportunity at all. I started swimming when I was 6 years old, in 2002, and at that time, everything was forbidden for me. I could not swim in the Olympics or the world championships. Just to compete was so special for me.
“Then the first medal [bronze in mixed duet in 2015 Kazan] was so special for me. The first medal was, ‘Oh my God, I got a medal, what is that?’ Then there was the second and the third.”
Prior to this year, the only world championships Minisini missed was 2023 Fukuoka, due to a leg injury.
“That moment I realized how lucky I was.”
As for life on land, Minisini said, “I am still involved in artistic swimming in a lot of ways. I am working in Italy with different clubs. Every weekend I go to a different city. I [worked] with the French federation and in England. I did one month in Australia. I am also studying psychology at Sapienza Università di Roma as part of a three-year program that I started after Covid. I am starting to build some projects with the university.”
As for his home base, Minisini said, “I have a small house in Rome. I grew up in Ladispoli, a small city near Rome, not far from the sea. Every time I see the sea I feel at home. Here in Singapore when I see the sea, I also feel at home.
As far as the 2025 competition, Minisini said, “The mixed events is what excites me the most – to see how much the mixed inclusion of the sport will make it grow.
“As an athlete I drew a road that didn’t exist. When they opened the Olympic Games to men in 2022 [for Paris 2024], only one coach out of 10 had worked with men. It’s impossible to take what you did with a woman put it inside men. Men will never be [the same] as women.
“If you want to put men in team [competition] you have to do what Mexico and Spain are doing. You need to use the difference that men bring.
“Once you go mixed, you don’t go back. This is a great opportunity. We lost it in Paris, but we can take it again in Los Angeles [Olympics 2028]. If we have a mixed team in Los Angeles, I am sure that we will have mixed duet in Brisbane [in 2032] because everyone will see what we can do.
“As a former athlete I see the need to push [the] new road [I took] to [create] a better one.
“I want everybody to know that every athlete, every champion, every world class athlete, we are just normal hard-working persons. There is nothing intrinsically special in the athletes. Everyone who has a strong motivation, an ambitious goal, and a will to work, will arrive in some way – maybe not where you want but you will go on a path that will discover a lot of things.
The difference, he said, is: “What makes you a world champion is that when you fall, you get back up.”
Contributing: Gregory Eggert, World Aquatics Correspondent