Freestyler is one to point fingers
Condorelli, father have been flipping each other for years
Just to be clear, Canadian swimmer Santo Condorelli isn’t giving you the finger from the start blocks. He’s giving it to his father.
An 8-year-old Santo was frustrated racing against, and getting beat by, older swimmers. So his father and coach Joseph Condorelli came up with the idea for the son to flip dad the bird before each race.
“(He said) ‘You’ve got to build your confidence yourself and say eff everybody else that you’re racing,” Santo explains. “He said ‘Every time you’re behind the blocks, give me the finger and I’ll give it back to you.’ ”
It’s a pre-race ritual that has received more attention during Santo’s ascension to Canada’s Olympic swim team. The 21-year-old will race in the freestyle relay Sunday, the100-metre freestyle Tuesday and the 50-metre free next Thursday in Rio.
There are multiple online photos of a goggled Santo with arm and middle finger fully extended.
He’s had to tone it down — bringing his middle finger closer to his forehead — as he’s landed in hot water for the gesture in the past. “Oh, have I,” Santo said. There was the time racing at junior nationals where Joseph was positioned right behind the television cameras. “I was looking at my father and I gave him the finger . . . directing it right at the camera,” he recalls “I had to write an apology.”
Father and son describe their relationship as unorthodox, but tight.
“I came from an Italian background, mother and father,” Joseph says. “My father passed away when my son was about two years old so I kind of lost the crutch of how to raise a child. I separated from his mother when he was about four-and-a-half, five years old.” “Can you imagine a rough New York City greaseball raising a young man who is that sensitive?”
Santo was born in Japan, but his mother Tonya is from Kenora, Ont., which Santo identifies as his Canadian hometown. Joseph is American and Santo spent much of his childhood in New York. Joseph felt sport was the best way to keep his son from the temptations of Gotham.
Santo finished fourth in the 100 at last year’s world championship in Kazan, Russia, and third in a Rio test event in April.
Athletes tend to have pre-competition rituals that get them mentally ready to race. Santo’s is unique and he knows the powers that be in his sport don’t love it.
He doesn’t want it to turn into a distraction in Rio.
“Athletes always have that one thing that gets them going that they need to do,” he said. “I’m not trying to piss people off. I just put it in the middle of my forehead now. My dad is definitely giving it to me and I can see him from a mile away.”