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The Olympic Games @olympics ✓
🥇🇮🇹 JANNIK SINNER wins gold for Italy in the men’s alpine skiing downhill at #milanocortina2026 #olympics
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carlos is currently somewhere between physically present and spiritually deceased in the green room, aimlessly scrolling past a wall of 412 unread congratulatory texts that he has approximately zero intention of opening because his social battery is somewhere deep in negative digits.
winning his seventh grand slam at 22 years old is incredible. historical. monumental. whatever. but the immediate post match comedown is an absolute, unmitigated mindfuck.
on the wall, a muted television monitor is flickering with winter olympics coverage that carlos couldn't care less about. he doesn't respect sports where the entire objective is ‘let’s see how fast you can rocket down a vertical sheet of ice on 2 sticks without snapping your spine in half.’
at least, until the broadcast cuts to the finish line camera.
the screen is suddenly filled with a guy in a red and white speed suit, lungs heaving, goggles pushed up to reveal a face carlos hasn’t seen in a decade but would recognize in a dark alley at 3 a.m.
somewhere down the corridor, an official turns up the volume on the hallway speaker. “…e ora, un momento storico per l’italia,” the commentator’s voice booms through the drywall, “il ritorno del nostro prodigio d’oro, jannik sinner!” (and now, a historic moment for italy, the return of our golden prodigy, jannik sinner!)
that's when carlos’s head snaps toward the screen so fast he actually hears his neck crack. he's off the couch in half a second, lunging across the room until his face is approximately 2 inches away from the glass, squinting so aggressively his retinas hurt.
everything goes quiet. it's the tunnel effect. the walls of the room seem to stretch away, leaving carlos alone with the image of a boy who once lived 3 houses down.
suddenly he's 13 again. standing by the lemon tree with a scraped knee, watching the back of a red headed boy’s shirt as he loses another race down the street, feeling that dizzying mix of ‘i hate you’ and absolute, idiot devotion. jannik. the neighbor who moved away to the mountains and took the color out of the neighborhood with him.
and now that exact same boy is on an olympic broadcast. the only person who ever made carlos feel like coming in second was fine as long as they were together. same freckles scattered across his nose. same defiant grin.
except he's a whole ass adult now. broad shoulders, full jaw, an olympic gold medal hanging around his neck.
every single suppressed, idiotically perfect memory carlos was convinced he'd successfully buried comes rushing back at terminal velocity.
"carlos? press is waiting," his pr manager says, pushing the door open with an ipad tucked under her arm.
"i don't know him," carlos blurts out to the empty room before she can even open her mouth.
she squints at the screen, then at carlos’s flaming red ears. "i didn't ask."
carlos instantly spins his phone on his palm, dropping into a deeply unnatural stance to look like a normal human being casually checking his twitter notifications. “oh, uh… i’m just… appreciating… yes. general admiration for… winter sports.”
“mmm,” she says, her expression remaining precisely zero percent convinced. “do you know him?”
“no!” carlos says quickly, his hands flying up like he's fending off a swarm of invisible bees. “no i don’t know that person on the screen. that… that man. italian skier. i never met him. like, zero history. total stranger. he's um... completely unrelated to my life.”
his pr manager tilts her head, her gaze shifting from the tv where jannik's currently biting his gold medal back to carlos. “really? is that why your pulse is almost audible from here?”
carlos swallows, his cheeks heating up so fast he's actually worried about spontaneous combustion. he needs to be calm and composed.
instead, he looks back at the monitor screen, catches another glimpse of that stupid lopsided smile and messy ginger hair, and his brain simply… blue screens. 404 error. page not found. “look, if i'd seen that face before… believe me, i'd never forget. like, that's a very… memorable facial structure.”
she stares at him for 3 full seconds, raising an eyebrow. “right. press conference in 5 minutes. put a shirt on.”
carlos gives a single nod, thumbing his lock screen as he mutters an internal mantra under his breath. we're strangers. i'm a stranger to him. he's a stranger to me. complete randoms.
"carlos. stage. now."
he gets up, his knees feeling like actual jelly. he steals one last desperate look at the monitor. jannik's waving at 30,000 screaming fans now, looking frustratingly ethereal, and carlos feels his soul pack its bags and leave his body entirely.
the press conference is, by all legal definitions, a disaster zone.
carlos is shoved onto the stage 5 minutes later. he's pale, visibly vibrating, and sweating through his jacket.
journalist: “carlos, 7 slams at 22. you're rewriting the history books. what was the tactical mindset coming into the match today?”
carlos stares blankly at the reporter. he blinks once. twice. inside his head, there's zero tactical tennis analysis. it's just a 24 hour hd loop of jannik’s freckles and the precise angle of his ski goggles pushing his hair back.
carlos: “uh, yes. for sure. i… i just try to play my best jann- i mean! my best tennis! i mean… enjoy the… moment. very… special. dream come true, for sure, uh…”
the row of reporters exchange identical glances that clearly say: tf is this mf talking about?
carlos grabs his water bottle with a trembling hand and downs half of it in one continuous swallow, praying for a sinkhole to open up under the table and swallow him whole.
journalist: “and… um… people always talk about how remarkably grounded you stay despite all this massive success. how do you keep yourself so grounded?”
carlos: “i think… the real secret to tennis… is staying on the ground. literally. like, flat on the dirt. i don't understand why any sane person would willingly strap 2 wooden planks to their feet and dive off a mountain. absolutely not. hard pass. i'm extremely pro ground.”
before the moderator can even call for the next question, carlos slams his water bottle down, pushes his chair back with a loud screech, and sprints out the side door like he's running down a drop shot at triple match point.
carlos is crammed into the back of the getaway car before the driver even turns the key. his team in the front seats is yapping about “recovery protocols” and “morning media obligations,” but carlos is currently orbiting an entirely different planet.
News & Race Reports: Jannik Sinner
Dry stats, official match recaps, race timing, and FIS standings.
No verified public social media accounts found for this query.
No instagram, twitter, or tiktok links attached to profile.
No relevant public relationship history found...
carlos lets out a pathetic sigh of relief.
"how does an olympic gold medalist not have an instagram?" carlos mutters, resting his forehead against the cool glass of the car window. "does the alpine wifi freeze?"
he immediately pivots, pulling up his teammate’s ‘following’ list instead. he hunts through the tagged photos on a recent post from the official italian olympic team. he clicks a tiny, unverified tag: @janthefox.
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there. the profile is maddeningly cool. snow, podium shots, sponsorships, dramatic mountain landscapes. carlos scrolls. he goes past the sleek brand deals and the “thank you italy” posts. he goes deep. 2021. 2020. 2019.
and then he hits pay dirt.
it's a grainy, low res photo from a local village fair. jannik's 17, his hair looks like a bird’s nest, and he's holding a slice of pizza the size of his torso with a visible smudge of white flour sitting on the tip of his nose. he looks so heartbreakingly identical to the boy from the lemon tree that carlos feels a physical ache in his chest.
did you know? carlos wonders, his eyes stinging as he stares at the screen. did you watch me win my first slam? did you see me on tv and know it was me?
he's leaning in so close, staring so hard at those familiar freckles, that his basic human motor functions completely fail him. his hand twitches. his thumb slips.
the little white heart under the 2019 photo turns red.
carlos drops the phone onto the floorboards of the car like it just turned into a live grenade. “oh my god,” he whimpers, slapping both hands over his face. he immediately starts praying to every deity he can name that jannik has his push notifications turned off.
he dives down, snatches the phone, and unlikes the photo in 0.5 seconds flat, but the damage is already done.
the death.
they weren't.
4 hundred miles away, jannik's sprawled flat on a massage table, his gold medal casually draped over the arm of a folding chair nearby. he's lazily scrolling through his phone, ignoring roughly 5,000 unread dms in his requests folder.
a notification banner pops up at the top of his screen. it disappears almost instantly:
@carlitosalcarazz liked your post
it's a ghost of a handle. a name that hasn't popped up on his screen in 10 years, but has been plastered across every sports bar tv and headline.
jannik opens the app. the notification is gone. the ultimate, desperate “i was never here” maneuver. but jannik isn't stupid. a slow, knowing smirk spreads across his face.
@janthefox sent you a message
back in the car, carlos’s heart stops dead in its tracks. he opens the direct message with a thumb that's shaking so hard he nearly drops it a second time.
it's a screenshot. jannik literally screen grabbed the notification in the tiny 2 second window it existed on his phone. the receipt is right there in high definition.
@carlitosalcarazz liked your post
@janthefox
i’m still faster :)
carlos’s entire neural network enters emergency lockdown mode. there's no witty banter to be had here. there's no playing it cool. there's only the primal survival instinct of a man who's just been perceived in his most vulnerable state.
“oh my god,” carlos wheezes, his heart pounding against his ribs. “nope. no, we're not doing this. i'm out.”
his thumb operates with the precision of a world class athlete. not to type a reply, but to wipe the threat from the face of the earth.
are you sure you want to block @janthefox?
they won't be able to find your profile, posts, or story on instagram.
“block,” carlos whimpers, slamming his thumb down on the screen. “yes, please. save me from myself.”
back on the massage table, jannik's patiently waiting for the little ‘typing…’ bubble to pop up under carlos's name. he already has his sarcastic follow up line mentally drafted.
he taps the profile icon for @carlitosalcarazz to see if he's posted any trophy pictures from his win today.
[user not found]
jannik blinks. he pulls down to refresh the feed.
[user not found]
he flips over to his burner account. the profile loads instantly. he switches back to his main. blank.
jannik stares at the empty screen, a look of pure, bewildered amusement crossing his face. he actually starts to laugh, a sharp, genuine sound that startles the physio.
“did he seriously…” jannik mutters, shaking his head in disbelief. “he actually blocked me. 10 years later and he's still a little runner.”
jannik sits up, his eyes gleaming with a competitive fire. blocking him might work on the internet, but he knows nike is announcing their newest global ambassador at their private party in 2 weeks. carlos is the face of the brand, and jannik just signed a massive deal with them.
“okay, carlos,” jannik murmurs, a smirk playing on his lips as he grabs his gold medal off the chair.
“run all you want. i’m much faster on the downhill anyway.”