The winner of the 3.000-meter speed skating race, Italian Francesca Lollobrigida, stated after winning the Olympic gold medal and the Olympic record in that discipline that her main desire in this competition was to show that it is possible to be a top athlete and the mother of a small child.
During a statement for the German TV channel RTL, she held her three-year-old son Thomas in her arms, who snatched the microphone from the presenter to shout "Hello Germany" and "Hello, you bastards" over her mother's statement.
Franceska took an almost two-year maternity break in 2022/23, after which she returned to racing with great success, and decided to take her son to almost all competitions around the world.
Lollobrigida, a cousin of the famous film actress Gina Lollobrigida and the current Italian Minister of Agriculture, turned 35 on Saturday and celebrated her birthday in the most beautiful way - by winning the gold medal on the very demanding 3.000-meter course, leaving behind the favored and much younger competitors Ragna Viklund and Joy Bune.
She competed in that discipline for the first time at the Olympics in Sochi in 2014, and then she finished 23rd.
Franceska spent most of her career as a competitor in inline speed skating, where she won more than 45 European and more than 25 world medals, including victories on circuit tracks, street races, and the most famous roller skating marathons.
Like many other female skaters, she dedicated herself to speed skating primarily to participate in the Olympic Games, since roller skating races, for unknown reasons, never became a Summer Olympic discipline.
She transferred her successful career from asphalt to ice by winning several medals at previous Winter Olympics (silver in the 5.000 meters, bronze in the mass start), but none of them have been golden so far.
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