Sara Curtis, 18, is the new Italian swimming star: record holder in the 50 and 100 freestyle, aims at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
He has an Italian dad, a former cyclist, and a Nigerian mother, a former athletic athletic athlete. He is only 18 years old but he is already a star of Italian and world swimming.
Sara Curtis (born in Savigliano in the province of Cuneo on June 19, 2006) began to swim from an early age and, unlike her peers, in the water she was wonderful and enjoyed it as well. They threw it into water at two years and she says: “It was love at first sight. The first time the instructors make us enter the water, everyone crys, except me. I laugh like a crazy”.
Grandfather Paride and grandmother Liliana were sure that she would become a great athlete: “You will do the Olympics”, they said to her as a child.
The medals arrived very early: at the World Championships and European European Championships of 2022, when he was only 16 years old. Then the debut with the seniors and, a year ago, the first big acute: the Italian record of the 50 meters freestyle, which earned her the pass for the Paris Olympics, where she participated in the 50 and the 4 × 100 relay, reaching the final.
Record, style and roots: Sara’s world
In the last few days he has rewritten the history of Italian swimming. On April 15, 2025, at the Spring Absolutes of Riccione, he signed the new national record in the 100 meters freestyle with 53 ″ 01, improving the primacy of Federica Pellegrini, which had resisted since 2016.
A few hours later the record also arrived in the 50 freestyle: Sara, who was already the Italian record holder of the distance, in battery improved his own record bringing him to 24.52 compared to the previous one of 24.56. At the moment it is the 5th time in the world.
She does not like the comparison with Federica Pellegrini: “Faith is always an inspiration for us young people, but we are very different. The athlete inspired by me is Simon Biles”.
He loves his braids, who make her mother and aunt, and who make her feel closer to her origins, even if Sara has never been perceived as the first Afrodiscendant who swims, but as one that goes fast in the pool.
He reads yellow and poems, loves to dress in a modern way and listens above all American rappers.
The goal, now, is obviously the Los Angeles 2028 Olympiad, but in the meantime there is school, and the times are hard: it is divided among the desks of the technical and tourist technical and swimming pool institute. The alarm clock sounds at 6:45 and the day is long. At his side is the boyfriend Andrea Pusceddu, a year older of a year older. And at each race there is a ritual: an African pendant jealously guarded in the hands of his coach. Everything was born at the Absolute 2024, where he conquered the pass for Paris. From that day, at each race, the rite repeats itself.
