In 2015 she became the first Italian open water swimmer to win the World Cup on the Olympic 10 km distance. To prepare for Rio the best she could, she lived a year of sacrifices, even though, as she emphasises, only swimming she “smiles at the effort” she is making. A smile that serves also to wipe away the tears cried over the fourth place gained at the Kazan 2015 World cup, and the missed chance of a medal. The turns in a swimming pool have always given her problems, in her DNA there is indeed swimming without walls. The 25 year old woman from Tuscany flies to Brazil for her first Olympic Games and to overcome any barrier that might separate her from the final podium, in a competition setting that become “more boxing than arm strokes”.