Schweitzer ends his sentence with "light after the darkness of injustice"

End of sentence on July 7, 2024. Alex Schwazer returns as a free man, also a sportsman: after eight years of darkness and a faint glimmer of hope, and an endless legal battle since, on the eve of the Rio 2026 Games, after a positive doping test, he effectively ended his competitive career, the Olympic walker of Beijing 2008 sees the light again. “Today the unjust disqualification that I had to serve comes to an end in full – declared the South Tyrolean, who will turn 40 in December – in a statement to the Italian news agency ANSA – I hope that no athlete will ever receive the treatment that I received. To suffer for these eight years to defend and protect my honor and my dignity, to prove my innocence, to try to obtain justice and to show the truth”.

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ANSA Agency Alex Schwazer returns to competition at Arco on July 19 – News – Ansa.it This was announced by Queen Athletica, the event organizer (ANSA).

Justice obtained by the former Italian athlete from the Criminal Court, with the dismissal of the case and the recognition by the Bolzano magistrates of the existence of test tube tampering. The thesis on which he based the entire process to prove his innocence, which was not recognized in the sporting arena: even the most recent requests, those that requested a discount in the hope of qualifying for the Paris Olympics (starting on July 26) ) were rejected. For Schwazer, the 2016 testosterone test was the second positive test: the first in three years and six months, dating back to April 23, 2013. It was EPO and there the pedestrian pleaded guilty. And then the break, the return to return to the top level and the choice to rely on Sandro Donati, the coach of the anti-doping champion.
Then in 2016, the positive (this time for testosterone) was always questioned by the Italian who tried until the end to prove that the samples had been altered. A story that has traveled far beyond the athletics tracks, becoming books, series on Netflix and documentaries almost always alongside Alex. There are those who wrote that “to exclude Alex from the Games is an insult to humanity and beauty”, but Schweitzer had to give up the Olympics (the last refusal was from TASS). By training every day, kilometers and kilometers, he fed the failed hope of going to the Paris Games, it is possible and certainly human that the dream now is to return to compete as an athlete.

“I thank all those (few) who were close to me in this painful (and hellish) journey – says the former Italian player -, those who never abandoned me, when it would have been easy to do so, those who fought with me and suffered with me for the injustice I had to endure and the treatment I received, and finally those (many) who, after understanding my innocence and my lack of involvement in the facts of which I was accused, made me feel (even from afar) their affection and closeness, thank you, the darkness and gloom caused by the injustice I suffered will now give way to the light of a new day in which I will be able to accompany my children to compete in the swimming pool or on the athletics track without suffering any consequences in cases of disqualification (which would have happened until yesterday).” Signature: “Alex”. Yes, the children, little Ida and Noah, the first light in Schwatzer’s second life.