The Challenge of Weights, Colored Hair, and the Escape to the Sea: Anna Piovsan’s Letter to Julia Itoma

Anna BiovisanShabak is 19 years old fromEsperia Cremona, She was a friend Julia Ituma, the volleyball player Igor Novara who died in Türkiye After falling from the sixth floor of the hotel where she was staying with the team. For investigators there is no doubt: suicide. Anna exchanged a series of letters with Julia the day before the tragedy And now she wrote a letter to Corriere to remember her friend. Here it is in full.

There has never been a better pair for weights than Piove and Titu-You can ask anyone. I’ve had the longest of my life with you, Not to let you win We pitted our flat seat As we are born, Every day, Always a little more, But you always win in this one. Before I got injured we squatted close to 200lbs at just 16 and if I set records I had to do that too and if I did I broke it again the next day. In this field, it was pure understanding and retail support.

I want to remind you that we love to dribble rather than throw baggers, and we all got a hair out when we raised our arms to proudly continue the technical gesture which in 90% of cases ended in a double scolding and reprimand. How many aces, hands, how many blocks we gave each other, how many smiles, then.

Last year I came home, we took a house by the sea And we went to break away from all that constant stress that surrounded you during that time in the gym. After those three days you left me your shirt, partly because “I don’t need it anyway” partly because it was always your way of showing people your kindness, through gestures, if the world had fallen “I love you” would hardly ever say it. In realizing a dream there is no vacation spot, and we knew it all too well. Tita, as I’m just calling you-I took my first trip with you. Sitting right behind me, I kept asking, “Shall we hurry up?” “How long do we fly??” And I laughed. Then 1000 meters from the ground “Ah Nana, we’re flying” and we laughed again.

The next year we spent hours on those chairs in the mountains in the cold, in silence, looking at the stars. Then every now and then we would say something silly and just burst out laughing like two idiots. I don’t remember how many hair colors I helped you choose.

Complete darkness in the summer of 2021, I couldn’t see the light, I didn’t understand what to do, I was sick physically and mentally, but the friends who held my hand limp on the stairs every day helped me get through that bad time, and you obviously were.

We didn’t have all the national team experiences together, not from A to Z, but I have no doubt we lived it all 100%, positive and negative. We’ve never played on the same team, we’ve never clashed in the league. Last year I am A1 and you are A2, the opposite this year, sooner or later we were going to have a first-class clash, as owners, we could not wait.

Titta I will never really know what gave you the strength to jumpI will suppose, I will try to understand, for logical reasons, that sooner or later I will run out of options, and I hope, surely, I will live them to the best of my ability. Crying for a long time in a row is not easy. I don’t know what I feel, I don’t feel anything, I feel everything tight and I miss air, maybe I felt this too?

All I need now is one of those spontaneous hugs you gave me in surprise, when I didn’t see you, but felt you and immediately understood that it was you. I’d like to hear you. I would like to feel you against my skin and caress this hair for a long time to dry … We wrote to each other in the afternoon, you could have called me, you could have told me, I would have done anything, and you know it. with you forever.