Paralympics: Italy wins two swimming golds

(ANSA) - ROME, AUG 25 - Italy won its first two golds at the Tokyo Paralympics Wednesday as Carlotta Gilli won the S13 100m butterfly and Francesco Bocciardo won the S5 200m freestyle.
    Alessia Berra silver in the S12 100m butterfly.
    In the first day of competition Italy has so far reaped four medals: two golds, a silver and a bronze.
    Turin-born Gilli, 20, is a partially sighted swimmer who holds twelve world records in her class.
    She won a total of nine golds at the 2017 and 2019 world championships.
    Genoa-born Bocciardo, 27, is a triple World and European champion who participated at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and the 2016 Summer Paralympics where he was the Paralympic champion in the men's 400m freestyle S6.
    Bocciardo has a disability called spastic distal tetraplegia which affects the movement in his legs, he was encouraged to do swimming as a part of rehabilitative therapy at a young age then he started swimming competitively in 2010 at the Italian national championships.
    Bocciardo has won three world titles and three European titles in freestyle swimming and his most successful championships was at the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships where he won two golds, two silvers and one bronze.
    Berra, 27, has won a number of other medals.
    Francesco Bettella won bronze in the men's S1 100m backstroke as Italy picked up its first medal at the Tokyo Paralympics earlier Wednesday.
    Veteran Bettella represented Italy at the 2012 Paralympics and at the 2016 Paralympics.
    In 2016, he won two medals: the silver medal both in the men's 50 metre backstroke S1 event and in the men's 100 metre backstroke S1 event. (ANSA).