Massimiliano Rosolino

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Medal record
Massimiliano Rosolino
Olympic Games
Men’s Swimming
Gold	2000 Sydney	200 m Individual Medley
Silver	2000 Sydney	400 m Freestyle
Bronze	2000 Sydney	200 m Freestyle
Bronze	2004 Athens	4x200 m Freestyle Relay
World Aquatics Championship
Gold	2001 Fukuoka	200 m Individual Medley
Silver	1998 Perth	200 m Freestyle
Silver	2001 Fukuoka	4x200 m Freestyle Relay
Bronze	2003 Barcelona	200 m Individual Medley

Massimiliano Rosolino (born July 11, 1978), is an Italian swimmer who won Italy's first ever Gold Medal for swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

[edit] Biography

Born in Naples of an Italian father, Salvatore, and Australian mother, Carolyn, he moved to Australia at the age of three, coming back to Italy at six. Rosolino declared about his beginnings as a swimmer:

I learned to float by sheer chance at the age of 4. Instead of the common arm floating bands, they made me swim with a headboard. Unfortunately it had a hole, and by the time I finally got out of the small and deep pool, the headboard had drowned... The first real swimming course I took was when I was 6 years old, and after that, lesson by lesson, I got to the pre-competition level. I always had a hard life, even though I was physically well-built, I always had to fight to become number 1, and even though I won a lot of races, I remember every race with emotion: the first regional championships, the national ones, the Young Europeans, and of course all the stomach aches I had.

In 2002 he moved back to Australia to train with coach Ian Pope at the Melbourne Vicentre Club.

His first participation in the Olympics was in 1996 at Atlanta. He reached three finals (200m, 400m and 4x200m freestyle), scoring sixth in all of them. Rosolino declared he was unsatisfied by these results, in spite of the great improvements he showed, and that he would have to work hard to reach the highest level.

At the Sydney, in 2000, he won three medals. He won the 200m medley (setting an Olympic Record), while in the 400m freestyle he finished behind an unbeatable Ian Thorpe. In the 200m freestyle he was third: he was beaten again by the Australian champion and also by the winner, Pieter van den Hoogenband from Netherlands.

The 2004 games in Athens proved less satisfactory: Rosolino managed to achieve only a third place finish in the 4x200m freestyle relay final.

Besides these results, Rosolino won one gold (200m medley, Fukuoka 2001), two silver and one bronze medal at several Swimming World Championships. These are matched by one gold medal, one silver and three bronze medals in 25m pool events. At the European Championship his scores included 3 silver and 3 bronze medals, plus five gold, 3 silver and one bronze in 25m swimpool editions. He currently (2006) holds the Italian 200m medley and 800m freestyle records. Rosolino's popular nickname is Cagnaccio (Bad Dog).

[edit] Personal bests

In long-course swim pools Rosolilno's personal bests are:

• 100m freestyle: 50.88
• 200m freestyle: 1:46.60 (Italian record)
• 400m freestyle: 3:43.40 (European record)
• 800m freestyle: 7:51.82 (Italian record)
• 200m individual medley: 1:58.98 (Italian record)

[edit] External links

• www.rosolino.com Personal site (Italian) (English)

Olympic champions in men's 200 m individual medley
1968: Charles Hickcox | 1972: Gunnar Larsson | 1984: Alex Baumann | 1988: Tamás Darnyi | 1992: Tamás Darnyi | 1996: Attila Czene | 2000: Massimiliano Rosolino | 2004: Michael Phelps