They refuse to give up. Brothers Dario and Franco Leo keep training — and their story unfolds here in pictures and words. On November 7, they were supposed to tackle the New York Marathon in their own extraordinary way: Dario pushing the wheelchair carrying Franco, who was primed and ready to race the full 42 kilometers. But they hadn't reckoned with one thing — the travel restrictions that kept shutting the borders to citizens of the Schengen zone. The United States remained closed to them.
«As many of you know, word came down that U.S. borders won't reopen until November 8 — the day after the fiftieth edition of the marathon starts. I wrote to the U.S. Consul General in Naples, Mary Avery, begging for a special visa; unfortunately, she couldn't make an exception for us (…). We wanted so badly to be there. But Franco, you're made of stone, and your dream will happen on November 6, 2022. In the meantime, I'll take you all over Italy and show everyone what you're made of,» Dario Leo wrote on the Sogno attivo social page — the nonprofit he founded to make the journey possible and to support people living with disability.
Not an ending, then. All of this — the obstacles, the surprises, the setbacks that became routine during the health emergency — is just the start. And perhaps the one gift that came from the pandemic months we lived through (and haven't fully left behind) was learning to wait well: using the time to reflect, to rethink ourselves, to fix what wasn't working before. We learned that our dreams, though tucked away for a season, will happen when the time is right. The Leo brothers are living proof.