Nicola Bartolini enters the history of world artistic gymnastics. This morning, in Kitakyushu in Japan, the champion from Quartu Sant'Elena won his first world title in the free body. And Italy returned to the specialty podium after 55 years. It was since 1966, with Franco Menichelli who won bronze in Dortmund, that the tricolor did not fly over the podium.

Bartolini did even better, climbing on the top step. A step towards heaven and further and further away from the last years studded with torments: the shoulder injury, the long convalescence, the bitterness for the exclusion from the Tokyo Olympics. The only spark, the bronze medal at the European Championships in Basel, last April.

Now, Japan again set the stage for his triumph on the platform, at the end of a hard-fought final among the best eight specialists in the world. Preceded by the second place in the qualifiers (but with the best score in the execution), Bartolini was the first to take to the platform. With his coldness he obtained an 8,600 in the execution which, added to the 6,200 difficulty, has sanctioned the gold medal with 14,800 points. Immediately behind the home champion Kazuki Minami (14,766) while the bronze went to the Finnish Emil Soravuo (14,700). Final to be forgotten instead for the defending champion, the Filipino Carlos Yulo, just fifth after running into a penalty.