Ricky Petrucciani sprints to silver

Sometimes it’s good to just be able to walk freely. Ricky Petrucciani had been assigned lane 8 in the 400m final, he started with a curve handicap and had all the competition behind him. So he just ran, cheeky and fast. In the final corner he seemed to pay a bit of tribute for this, the strongest opponents pulled away slightly. But then the Ticino found a few more drops of petrol in the tank. He ran the home straight in an impressive manner and threw himself into second place.

It was reminiscent of a time long past. In the 1990s, Swiss men were a small force on the track circuit. Mathias Rusterholz won bronze at the 1994 European Championships, and that was an important signal for Swiss athletics. Werner Günthör had ended his career the previous summer with his third gold medal at the World Championships, and it seemed as if a long dry spell was about to begin. But then suddenly there was this long sprinter who awakened new hopes. In 1999 Marcel Schelbert even won bronze at the World Championships on the track, but over the hurdles.

A fight against the body

And so now there’s another one that stands out in this discipline where athletes push the limits of their bodies to the extreme. It is deceptive when someone like Petrucciani seems to be accelerating at the end. On the home stretch, everyone is struggling with the lactate flooding their bodies and their heavy legs. These are distress signals from the body that need to be suppressed.

There is no such thing as an athlete going faster, it’s all about losing as little speed as possible. Often the run ends in a quiet corner where the athlete throws up. Petrucciani is someone who has mastered this fight. And it should only be a matter of time before he surpasses Rusterholz not only in the medal table. The Appenzeller holds the national record with 44.99. The Ticino came within three hundredths of a second when he became European U-23 champion in 2021 in 45.02. In Munich he ran the second best time of his career with 45.03.

The Ticino native is one of the athletes who decided against a football career and opted for athletics. He canceled the talent team Ticino and switched to Virtus Locarno. In 2021 he said to the “Tages-Anzeiger”: “I wanted to train for myself and not for a team, I wanted to achieve my results and not those of a team.” It probably needs this attitude to get the most out of yourself.

Perhaps the difficult family situation also contributed to this. Petrucciani’s mother is a Brazilian who soon found the Onsernone Valley too small. She left the family when the boy was only two years old. Today she lives in Italy, the contact is loose. “Of course I missed her as a child,” says Petrucciani, “we are different from a normal Swiss family.” The relationship with the father is close, she has helped him over the years.

In 2017, his first coach resigned and it was difficult to find a solution for the talented sprinter in Ticino. Petrucciani turned to Flavio Zberg, who has been working with track lap specialists in Zurich for years. It was he who led Kariem Hussein to the 400m European title in 2014. And he saw the quality of the young Ticino. Zberg praises his economic step and the head that knows exactly what he wants. He even said once that Switzerland had never seen such a sprinter.

Zberg was so convinced of the athlete that he launched a project to support the Ticino. He found two foundations and some former track and field athletes who made a financial commitment. However, the association did not include Petrucciani in its support system. He was not extremely conspicuous at the time, said Philipp Bandi, head of competitive sports at Swiss Athletics.

Everything is geared towards success

Today, Petrucciani has an environment that is entirely geared towards success. His trainer Zberg oversees a project financed by Weltklasse Zürich and using the ultra-modern OYM sports center in Cham. They try to optimize every detail with scientific support. This goes so far that in the canteen every athlete is served exactly what, according to analyzes, he needs for his body.

Five athletes belong to the group. Four of them won medals at the U-23 European Championships. However, the high flight did not continue unabated, and Petrucciani also needed time this summer until he found the right feeling for the competitions. However, the training sessions were good, he said. In the European Championship final in Munich, he proved that it wasn’t just a phrase.

Like Rusterholz, Petrucciani seems to have been made to advance his discipline in Switzerland. In the 1990s, an ambitious relay project was built around the best athletes. After his retirement it was abandoned, the 400m became meaningless. Now there’s another 4x400m relay with Petrucciani as the lead figure. Maybe she can do what she couldn’t do 20 years ago: win an international medal.