Gold and world record: “Pipo” Carlomagno, the Argentinean swimmer who seeks goals as big as the Paralympics themselves

Competitive sport can be seen as a staircase, climbing step after step in search of improvement. Argentine swimmer Fernando “Pipo” Carlomagno has almost no steps left, because his goal for this Monday in Tokyo is double and ambitious: gold and the world record in the 100m backstroke at the Paralympic Games.

“I’m 30 hundredths of a second off the world record, and more than half a second ahead of the second. The circumstances are right for me to go for that record and that medal,” Carlomagno told Around the Rings from the Paralympic Village in Japan’s capital.

With 57 athletes, Argentina’s delegation is the eleventh largest at the Games. The South Americans have a long association with the Games. In Rome 1960, they were the only Spanish-speaking country present and until 2021 have accumulated 156 medals, 31 of them gold.

Bronze medalist at the world championships two years ago, Carlomagno believes that setting gold and the world record as a goal is not putting too much pressure on himself: “I don’t set such big goals unless I can achieve them. The truth is that they are very achievable goals, yes”.

Born in Rosario, the second largest city in the country, Carlomagno is the son of a swimmer and has practiced all kinds of sports since he was a child. “I became a swimmer because of my father, who was also a Paralympic swimmer. I have an inherited disability, a gene that could mutate and did mutate, a disability in my legs that led me to Paralympic sport.”

The Argentine is impressed with the Tokyo Aquatic Center, which is the same one used in the recent Olympic Games.

“The aquatic center is crazy, you can see that they are betting on hosting the next world championships. The infrastructure, the stands, the capacity, the technology of this place... it is a great place, a pity that there could not have been an audience during the Olympic Games, the Japanese public would have been incredible and would have given it an exceptional setting”.

With the gold and the record in his sights, Carlomagno does not want to take any risks. He avoided going to last Tuesday’s opening ceremony and does not interact with athletes other than the Argentine swimmers.

“I prioritized taking care of myself, I was competing the next day. You left at three in the afternoon and arrived at 1.30 in the morning at the village. It wasn’t worth the wear and tear for the ceremony, which I thought was beautiful. I liked how they showed another side; they could have done a show of lights and fireworks with a great technological display, but they prioritized showing their culture, craftsmanship and everything beautiful that Japan has. I loved it.”

And the other athletes? Little or nothing: “We prefer not to mix and be in our own bubble, the swimmers, and not to have so much contact with other sports and other countries. The complicated thing is the protocol, every day saliva tests and a lot of care”.

Both the Olympics and the Paralympics were held under strict controls imposed by the Japanese government, which fears that visitors arriving in Tokyo might infect the locals. Not so during the Olympics, which mobilized more than 90,000 people and generated only 322 cases of Covid-19 in the Olympic bubble.

Carlomagno, a smiling and affable 28-year-old, is studying to be an elementary school teacher, but sport is his great passion.

“Our delegation aims much more at individual sport than collective sport. Los Murciélagos (the blind soccer team) are the exception, the only team that has qualified and is going for a medal.”

“And I am looking for the gold in the 100m backstroke, together with a jumper I am the only Argentinean with a chance to win the gold. I arrive at these Games in first place in the world ranking and in a constant progression: five years ago my medal was to reach the Games, in the last World Championship I went for a medal and I got bronze, ten hundredths of a second away from gold and ten hundredths of a fourth place. And in the Para-Pan Americans in Lima I won a gold and two bronzes”.

And now? “Gold and world record,” he insists. On Monday, August 30, the truth will be known.