Having arrived in Italy by ship at just 12 years old, hidden among the wheels of a truck, the Albanian Franko Abazi became a champion of Greco-Roman wrestling. Moving from family to family, the athlete lived for a period at the Casa delle Culture in the San Paolo district, on the outskirts of Bari, a shelter for homeless immigrants, where these photographs were taken. Unable to train in a gym, Abazi invented a DIY training program that he then taught to the other residents of the center. The report that I photographed and also wrote was published in Style by Corriere della Sera.
