CONDORELLI Santo

General
REPRESENTING ITALY
He was born in Japan and grew up in Portland, OR, United States of America. As a youngster he was eligible to represent both the United States of America and Canada and, although he started swimming for the US team at junior level, he declared that he would compete for Canada in 2014. Following the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where he placed fourth in the 100m freestyle, he was then encouraged to switch nationalities by Italian swimmer Gianpaolo Barelli, whom he had met while studying at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, United States of America. Condorelli is eligible to compete for Italy through his father's side of the family and he received confirmation of the switch in 2018, having relocated to Italy more than 12 months earlier. "My great grandparents left Catania to try their luck in the United States. I experienced my Canadian side that comes from mum and I wanted and needed to discover the Italian one. After Rio's fourth place, I was furious and decided to widen my boundaries. I like to consider myself the most international swimmer in international swimming." (SportsDeskOnline, 07 Jun 2021; SwimSwam YouTube channel, 03 Apr 2019; oasport.it, 08 Nov 2018; federnuoto.it, 02 Nov 2018; swimming.ca, 16 Jul 2015; swimswam.com, 24 May 2015; o.canada.com, 02 Apr 2015)

ONE-FINGER SALUTE
Before the start of races he raises his middle finger and directs it towards his father who returns the gesture. The tradition started as a motivational tool when his father began training him in 2005. "Being so small as a child I'd always get intimidated. Every time I was going to race I'd just get scared. My dad was like, 'You know what? Give me the finger before every race, so you're just worrying about us because, with what we put in, we can conquer anything'." In 2012 he apologised when television viewers thought he was making the gesture at the television cameras and, following advise from Swimming Canada, he has found methods of making the gesture more discreetly. (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 13 Feb 2020; swimswam.com, 27 Jan 2016)