Federica Pellegrini

The darling of Italian swimming, Federica Pellegrini broke numerous world records and won golds at the Olympics, European and Worlds as a 200m and 400m freestyle specialist. Born in Mirano, Pellegrini gained her first taste of international competition as a relay swimmer in the 2003 World Aquatic Championships before competing individually in the European Championships later that same year. In 2004, Pellegrini became the youngest Italian athlete to win an Olympic medal in an individual event when she picked up a silver in the 200m freestyle at Athens at the age of 16. A year later, she made the top of the podium for the first time in the same event at the European Championships and landed her first WAC medal with a silver at Montreal. Pellegrini proved to be as successful when she added the 400m freestyle to her program, picking up a bronze in the 2006 WAC, a silver in the 2007 Europeans and finally a gold in the 2008 Europeans. Pellegrini subsequently went into the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the hot favorite, but could only finish fifth in the final. However, she made up for that disappointment when she broke her own world record to win gold in the 200m freestyle and become Italy's first ever female Olympic swimming champion. Pellegrini repeated that feat at the European Short Course Championships and at the 2009 WAC in Rome where she also became the first female swimmer to break the four-minute barrier in the 400m freestyle. In 2010, Pellegrini picked up her first medal in the 800m freestyle with a bronze at the Europeans in Budapest, and continued to assert her dominance in her more familiar events by becoming the first ever female swimmer to win two consecutive WAC golds in both the 200m and 400m freestyle. 2012 proved to be relatively disappointing when she was excluded from the final of the Euros 400m freestyle and finished fifth in both of her main events at the London Olympics. But she returned to form with silvers in the 200m freestyle at the WAC in Barcelona 2013 and Kazan 2015, becoming the first female in swimming history to win six medals in the same event at six consecutive World Championships.