Spectator Sport | 8 August 2009

Not since Anita Ekberg cavorted in the Trevi fountain for Fellini’s cameras nearly half a century ago has the Eternal City seen a display of sensual aquatic superstardom quite like it. Federica Pellegrini was the undoubted galactica of the World Swimming Championships, bringing the capital, and the country, to a halt when she hit the pool. She won two golds and broke two world records, to add to the eight she holds already, and she has only just turned 21. What a gal: and not only that, but she lives her life on the front pages, is blessed with movie-star looks, has modelled nude for Vanity Fair (natch), and been involved in what we tabloid journos would call a poolside love triangle, having acquired her current boyfriend, an Italian swimmer, from his previous lover, a French swimmer. Whoever said swimming was boring?

(Mark you, this controversy over swimming’s ‘go-faster’ supersuits seems batty. If the French can devise a perfectly sensible by-law so that when using a municipal pool you must wear a pair of trunks — swimming in your shorts is strictly interdit — then presumably it’s not beyond the wit of man to come up with a set of guidelines for what a competition swimsuit should be like).

It’s been a great time for women’s sport. I particularly loved Catriona Matthew, who is old enough to be Pellegrini’s mum, winning the British Open just a few weeks after giving birth to her second child. The Scot is only the fourth British woman to win a major, and in 14 years as a professional has often wondered whether it was worth carrying on. When asked in a radio interview how much she had won, she was genuinely astonished.