A thank you message to establish a consolidated friendship. In the best moment of his life (not only in sports), four days after putting the Olympic gold around his neck, the Englishman Alex Yee wanted to remember his friend from Cagliari, the vascular surgeon Antonio Maxia.
He was there at the "Brotzu" on 4 June 2017, when the then nineteen-year-old English triathlete was taken by ambulance after a terrible bicycle fall during the Italian World Triathlon Cup event in Cagliari. The curb of the Ichnusa pier, against which he had hit his back, could have killed him. The doctors at the Cagliari hospital saved his life, stabilized him, treated him for a month, until he could be transferred to his country . Among them also Maxia, who after a good career as a hockey player at Amsicora, had in the meantime become passionate about triathlon.
A friendship was born between triathletes, strengthened by the meetings that took place when Alex, having recovered prodigiously, returned to Cagliari for what in the meantime had become a World Triathlon Championship Series race: the best there is. So much so that it was Yee himself who arrived first, three times out of three, at the Poetto finish line, who in the meantime had climbed to the second step of the podium at Tokyo 2020 and become heir to the brothers Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee. To the point of winning the Olympic gold last Wednesday in Paris, the pinnacle of any athlete's aspirations.
From the "Brotzu" in Paris, from the possible drama to the apotheosis, without ever forgetting who made possible everything beautiful that Yee was able to conquer with his talent and his consistency in training since that 4 June 2017. Because even a simple a little message, sent at a time when the whole world is looking for and wants to celebrate you, can reveal a world-class soul.