It’s such a joy to see the genuine camaraderie among the female gymnasts, and their fans, too! We were kvelling over Team USA reclaiming gold earlier this week, and I was chuffed to see all the love silver and bronze medalists Italy and Brazil, respectively, got from y’all in the comments. Kaiser noted what a big deal it was for Brazil to place given the hustle their team had to do to get sponsors for funding. Well, it was also a BFD (to quote our President) for Italy to win a medal — their first in artistic gymnastics since 1928! And as it turns out, a star athlete on Team Italy, Giorgia Villa, has a quintessentially Italian endorsement deal of her own: she’s sponsored by parmesan cheese. Mamma mia, how can a formaggio fund an athlete?! Sei pazzo!
Italy is ecstatic with the Team Silver win: Three years ago Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa was cruelly denied her first shot at Olympic glory when she injured her ankle less than two weeks before getting on the plane for Tokyo. On Tuesday, the 21-year-old from Brescia helped Italy to their first medal in artistic gymnastics since 1928, teaming with Angela Andreoli, Alice D’Amato, Manila Esposito and Elisa Iorio to win a historic silver behind the United States. The Italian quintet have become overnight celebrities back home, where they have been dubbed le fate d’argento (the silver fairies).
Fans discovered Villa’s sponsor from pics on her socials: But Villa’s profile has managed to transcend gymnastics in the days since her landmark medal thanks to a viral tweet which unearthed her endorsement deal with parmesan cheese. The images speak for themselves. There’s Villa posing in her leotard next to a wheel of parmesan. There’s Villa seated proudly with three wheels of parmesan, performing an aerial cartwheel over a wheel of parmesan, doing the splits on four wheels of, yep, parmesan. There’s Villa giving a warm embrace to her “best friend” — you guessed it — a wheel of parmesan. More than 20 sponsored posts across Villa’s social media channels have featured her showing off wheels, blocks and bit-size packets of the hard cheese.
‘Big Parma’ has deals with lots of Italian athletes: Three months before the Tokyo Olympics, Villa signed a sponsorship deal with the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium (PRC), the association which oversees production and unites all producers of the cheese. A press release hailed the partnership as “confirming how the combination of Parmigiano Reggiano and the world of sport is indissoluble in terms of authenticity, quality and energetic value, both in sporting activity and in correct nutrition”. She is not the first athlete to get in bed with Big Parma. According to the Italian marketing agency Impresa e Sport, Parmigiano Reggiano has also partnered with current world No 1 men’s tennis player Jannik Sinner, former NBA point guard Nico Mannion and Paralympic swimmer Giulia Ghiretti and the fencer Matteo Neri. The association boasts that Parmesan cheese, which is made through a manufacturing process dating to the 13th century, is “suitable for a sports diet”.
She’s been bringing medals back to Italy for years: Villa’s mother signed her up for gymnastics lessons “before I destroyed her whole house” due to her high energy and activity level. “I had just started nursery school, but I immediately understood that I would love that sport with all my being,” she said. “I left school and, still wearing my pink apron, I couldn’t wait to enter that gym and jump and run feeling free and happy.” Since the age of 11 she has been schooled at the Italian Gymnastics Federation’s International Academy of Brescia, training six days a week. Villa no doubt caught the eye of the PRC’s power brokers after the 2019 world championships where she competed on all four apparatus to lead Italy to a surprise bronze, the country’s first team medal since 1950.
“Confirming how the combination of Parmigiano Reggiano and the world of sport is indissoluble in terms of authenticity, quality and energetic value, both in sporting activity and in correct nutrition.” Now that’s some bold PR! But hey, like they say, you can’t run a marathon without parmesan cheese… And I guess I’m the big fool if it didn’t occur to me before now that Italy would have a powerful cheese mafia. Er, mi scusi, not a mafia, I meant to say a “consortium … which oversees production and unites all producers” of parmesan. At least Big Parma (and Bravo to the author for that pun-tacular turn of phrase) is putting their power to good use, supporting their athletes. Villa comes across as a force that simply could not be denied in her sport. And she had glowing things to say about watching Simone Biles perform this week: “Simone is from another planet. Seeing her vault and all her acrobatics from so close up is a unique privilege.” May these two gymnastic goddesses have a meeting soon, say over wine and cheese? (Scusa, non scusa.)