Antonella Palmisano was born on August 6, 1991, in Mottola, a small town in the province of Taranto. As a child, she participated in the Youth Games and soon discovered race walking, a discipline in which she immediately felt at ease. From the youth categories, she achieved numerous successes and records, also standing out for a special tradition: since 2010, she has competed with a flower in her hair, sewn by her mother as a good luck charm, in the colors of Italy and the host country. For this reason, she is known as the race walker with a flower in her head. In 2021, she won Olympic gold at the Tokyo Olympics, winning the 20 km race walk and becoming the first Italian woman ever to win an Olympic gold.