Che ruolo ha lo sport nella tua vita?

April 7, 2026·27 min·2 clips

Alessandra Argese turned running into therapy after moving to Australia for love, not knowing anyone.

1. SBS Italian's morning program, hosted by Andrea Pagani and Paolo Gallo, devotes its April 7, 2026 broadcast to Italian Australian listeners' relationship with sport, on the occasion of World Sport for Development and Peace Day. 2. Andrea Pagani and Paolo Gallo are the co-hosts; guests include personal trainer Alessandra Argese, football coach Davide Bertamini, skating coach Dario, and sports journalist Domenico Gentile. 3. The episode's core question is: has sport served as a bridge for Italian immigrants in Australia — helping them build community, find work, and feel at home? 4. The program opens with the theme from Chariots of Fire by Vangelis, and the hosts note it is the World Sport for Development and Peace Day, established by the United Nations in 2013. 5. Paolo Gallo reveals he used the Chariots of Fire soundtrack as running music in a past running period, setting up the theme of sport as personal soundtrack to life transitions. 6. The hosts play a quiz segment featuring audio clips of iconic Italian sporting moments — including Marcell Jacobs's sprint start and a volleyball match — offering listeners a one-on-one radio lesson with Domenico Gentile as the prize. 7. Alessandra Argese, a fitness instructor and personal trainer based in Australia, explains she has treated sport as 'natural medicine' since childhood, and that running through loneliness was her first survival tool after arriving from Italy. 8. Argese says she arrived for love, knowing only her future husband, and that sport transformed from a personal therapy into a profession over 27 years, teaching boxing, spin, and reform Pilates classes that begin as early as 5:30am. 9. She distinguishes Australian from Italian approaches to sport: she says Australian schools embed sport from early childhood, making it easier to build a fitness career there than in Italy, where classes run at conventional hours and the culture is less fitness-obsessed at the early morning level. 10. Argese observes that teaching fitness classes involves significant psychological work — clients disclose personal problems, and instructors function as impromptu therapists — and credits sport with teaching her to improve human relationships generally. 11. She closes with a performance philosophy: 'It is not a matter of motivation — no one has motivation, I don't either sometimes. It is only a matter of discipline.' 12. Davide Bertamini arrived in Australia in 2009 as an engineer but was missing football within six months; he connected with coaches Andrea Icardi and Gio Montemuro, which eventually led to a full-time role as technical director at Football Queensland. 13. He describes his role as training coaches and clubs across Queensland, and calls football '24-7' in his current life. 14. Bertamini contrasts Italian football culture — '65 million coaches' — with Australian football, which he says is only two generations deep but growing rapidly, especially in the women's game. 15. He confesses that after attempting to watch Australian football (EFL) his excitement never sparked, but that cricket, introduced by an English colleague, became his unexpectedly favourite discovery — a sport he calls highly tactical and technical despite its surface appearance of uniform sameness. 16. Dario, a skating coach in Adelaide, recounts switching careers from economics to coaching after arriving in Australia, joining a skating club to meet people and finding that the dedication of Australian sport participants inspired him to start coaching. 17. He summarizes the benefits of sport in twenty seconds: endorphins, adrenaline, physical confidence, and 'being the best version of yourself.' 18. Sports journalist Domenico Gentile closes the episode with an anecdote about his favourite sporting memory: meeting roller skating world champion Pippo Cantarella at a regional event on the slopes of Mount Etna at Trecastagni, where Cantarella's speed on a 500-metre straight was so extreme that a motorcycle-mounted timekeeper would have been hit, and organizers had to substitute a Fiat 500 Abarth as the pacemaker vehicle. 19. The tone is warm and participatory — a call-in radio format with enthusiastic hosts who interject personal memories and jokes, creating the texture of a community conversation rather than a structured documentary. 20. Best suited for Italian-speaking listeners who have immigrant experience in Australia or interest in the social role of sport in diaspora communities; not recommended for those seeking analysis of elite sport, Italian Serie A football, or structured sports science content.

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