Pier Alberto Buccoliero
Manduria (Ta)
Pier Alberto Buccoliero, born in 1987, is a water sports and triathlon champion. Born in Manduria, in the province of Taranto, after his high-school diploma he joined the Navy as a cadet officer at the Livorno Naval Academy. In 2009, due to a serious accident, he was left with incomplete paraplegia and had to take leave.
His interest in sport started straight after the injury, and soon he achieved major successes in several disciplines: as early as 2010, he reached great results in rowing, landing a number of podiums in several competitions. Shortly after, he switched to the canoe, a completely different sport but one in which he excelled immediately, becoming in 2016 the first Italian national team member in history to win two world titles. Finally, he tried para-bobsleigh and triathlon, in which he also achieved excellent results from the outset. In 2017, he discovered Obiettivo3 through his friendship with Piero Amati and soon became a key figure in the initiative, serving as both coach and athlete. Most recently he also took up handbike racing, confirming his status as an all-round athlete. In 2021, he reached the most important milestone of his career, participating in the Paralympics in Tokyo in the speciality of the paratriathlon, after winning the Italian duathlon championship in the same year. The following year, in 2022, he took first place in the Italian triathlon championship and became the first Italian in his category to qualify for the IronMan World Championships in Hawaii.
