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Special story/ Before Eva Buzo, even the Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto tried to swim Otranto

2023-06-24 15:06:54Sport SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Special story/ Before Eva Buzo, even the Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto tried to
Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto tried to swim Otranto

Eva Buzo is the first woman who has taken on the challenge to describe Italy-Albania by swimming, but she is not the only person.

Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto was the first to try, but could not swim from Brindisi to Vlora.

The 47-year-old lawyer from Bari took the initiative in June 1985, an event that was considered special for the time.

Calculating the distance of 73 km, no one had previously been able to describe it by swimming.

At 10:00 a.m. on June 27, 1985, Paolo Pinto started his journey, accompanied by a group of doctors and swimmers. The Italian media said at the time that he would not stop in Vlora, but in Karaburun.

Special story/ Before Eva Buzo, even the Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto tried to
The team that accompanied Paolo Pinto to Vlora

All went well until the early hours after midnight when he started showing the first problems after about half way.

The atmospheric conditions also worsened and the wind made swimming impossible. Even, for about 20 minutes, the boat accompanying him lost the swimmer, only to find him later. Under these conditions, the team decided that Pinto would stop the race at 5 am, after 20 hours of swimming.

Doctors met him on the shore and gave him first aid. But it didn't end there. Pinto decided to continue his journey a few hours after reaching Vlora.

He started his journey from Karaburun to Vlora, a distance of 20 kilometers.

After 6 hours he completed his long journey, although according to him, this journey was unfinished, because of the interruption he made.

Paolo Pinto, graduated in law, was from Pula and lived in Bari. Born in 1937, with a very athletic physique, 1.79 m tall, he first played basketball in his youth.

Special story/ Before Eva Buzo, even the Italian swimmer Paolo Pinto tried to

Later he devoted himself to swimming, preferring semi-deep distances. It was precisely this sports discipline that led him in the 70s to change the competition and devote himself to long-distance swimming passages. Among the most famous ones, it is twice that of the English Channel (33 km - 11 hours) in September 1979, that of Kastro Marina-Fanos, Greece, (91 km in 41 hours) and Corsica-Elba (71 km in 30 swimming hours). Paolo Pinto was the first to build and use the anti-shark cage, which for the time was a novelty especially for the applicants of this sport. In closed Albania, information and knowledge about Pinto was scarce, even nothing accurate, as it was not known who he was, his career, etc. When it was said that an Italian would leave Bari by swimming to Vlora, few believed it. For everyone, such an initiative was utopian and unfeasible for several factors. But, not for the Italian and his staff, who had been preparing for a long time, sure that he would make this crossing, even though the atmospheric difficulties could be an obvious danger for him. And unfortunately that's what happened!

38 years after Paolo Pinto, another lawyer by profession undertook the historic mission, sailing from Otranto to Vlora.

Like Pinto, Eva Buzo did not manage to complete the challenge either, as she had problems after entering the Albanian territory and after 28 hours, she gave up.

Both stories remain special as they are known as the only cases when someone has attempted to swim from Italy to Albania.

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