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Rio 2016

Ten years on, Matteo Piano, Tania Cagnotto and Elia Viviani recall what it feels like to win an Olympic medal

The Rio 2016 Olympic Games have already entered sporting history, as three Italian athletes recount their experiences in a campaign created by DAO Sport.
by Redazione Undici 27 July 2026 at 15:09
Win an Olympic medal and the feeling stays with you for life. Ten years is no time at all. Even so, the anniversary is worth marking. That is why DAO Sport has created a campaign featuring three athletes from its roster: Elia Viviani, Matteo Piano and Tania Cagnotto, all medallists at Rio 2016, with a gold, a silver and a bronze respectively. Viviani stood on the top step of the podium in the omnium. Piano finished second with Italy’s volleyball team. Cagnotto won bronze in the three-metre springboard, adding a silver medal in the synchronised event alongside Francesca Dallapè. All three Italian medallists looked back on those days with a mixture of nostalgia and affection. And fear, too.

“I remember,” says Viviani, “arriving at the Village. They still had to finish it, and we didn’t know whether it would be ready in time. At the same time, I remember a particular feeling — somewhere between calm and concern while waiting for the race. And then, of course, I think about the final lap.” For Piano, “setting foot in the Olympic Village, despite the jet lag and the tiredness, was a wonderful feeling. Being there felt like reaching the top after a climb. I’d had surgery only a few months earlier, and making it to the Games was far from certain.”

For Cagnotto, Rio 2016 was the Olympics that put “the cherry on top of my career. I had competed at five editions of the Games and had never managed to win a medal. Standing on that podium was emotional. I could see my friends, my future husband. It was a truly beautiful edition of the Games. My father hugged me. We couldn’t believe it. It was the second medal we had won in the space of a week.”

Viviani’s memory, meanwhile, is slightly blurred. “I had to watch the footage again to realise what had happened. It was all a blur. What I remember are the images of the race, the crash, the way I reacted, and those final laps, when I understood it was done.” The words of the athletes, together with the photographs created for the campaign, show how deeply those moments and those achievements remain etched in the lives of Cagnotto, Piano and Viviani. And, in the end, in all of us. That is the beauty of the Olympics, even ten years on.

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