Spoiler warning: this covers the whole of Physical 100: Italy, including the final.
Matteo Sartori finished third on Physical 100: Italy, ahead of two judo champions, an Italian surf champion and 94 other athletes. He isn’t an Olympian or a fighter. He’s a 34-year-old striker from Cattolica who has spent his career in Italy’s semi-professional leagues, and who signed for a new club in the regional Eccellenza a week before the show came out.
Here’s who he is, how a footballer got within one pull-up of the last two, and what his run says about the kind of fitness this show rewards. For the whole series, see our Physical 100: Italy winner guide.
- Born: 1991 (34), from Cattolica, on the Adriatic coast south of Rimini
- Sport: football, as a striker
- Career: Serie C2, Serie D and Eccellenza, with clubs including San Marino, Rimini, Fano, Jesina, Recanatese and Urbino
- Current club: Matelica (Eccellenza), signed September 2026
- Physical 100: Italy: third, beaten by Emanuele Bruno in a sudden-death pull-up tiebreak
Who is Matteo Sartori?
Sartori is a journeyman striker from the Romagna–Marche border. He has played across three levels of Italian football: Serie C2 (as it then was) with San Marino and Rimini, Serie D, and the regional Eccellenza with clubs such as Jesina, Recanatese and Urbino. That’s the semi-professional end of the game, where players train in the evenings and play every Sunday.
Last season, with Fano, he scored the decisive goal in the promotion play-off final from about 40 metres, according to Vallesina TV. Fano went up on penalties. In September 2026 he moved to Matelica, where local press called the new-look front line “stellar”.
A footballer isn’t the obvious pick to go deep in a strength show. But as he put it on the show: “I’ve been chasing a ball for 34 years, I know how to run!”
How he finished third on Physical 100: Italy
The chariot strategist
Sartori got through the early individual rounds and into the team stages. In the episode 6 chariot race, teams of four hauled a chariot loaded from 100 kg up to 145 kg, one athlete per lap. He was his team’s strategist for the race, and the team qualified on time.
Qualifying came with a catch: each team that got through had to cut one member. Olympic judo medallist Rosalba Forciniti went, and Sartori chose to keep DJ Giulio Domi. Domi went on to the final six with him. For how every round worked, see every Physical 100: Italy challenge explained.
Picked as the easy draw, and it backfired
Judo champion Manuel Lombardo won episode 7’s Grid of Heroes, hanging above the pool for close to an hour, which let him choose his heat in the final’s obstacle course. He picked Domi and Sartori, avoiding the two men he’d named as the real threats, firefighter Tommaso Nisi and surf champion Edoardo Papa.
It didn’t work out for him. The course was five laps in 20 minutes, and Sartori completed all five. According to Altarimini, one rival’s verdict was “That man is a beast!” Sartori came through the heat. Lombardo, the favourite who had picked him, didn’t make the next round.
One pull-up short
The three men left, Sartori, Nisi and Emanuele Bruno, then did an endurance pull-up test with no upper limit. Nisi outlasted both of them to take the first place in the decider. Sartori and Bruno went to a sudden-death pull-up tiebreak for the second, and Bruno won it.
That left Sartori third. Bruno went on to beat Nisi in a push-of-war on top of an aqueduct that reportedly lasted nearly two hours. Read how he did it in our Emanuele Bruno profile.
Why a footballer went so far
Sartori’s run fits a pattern across every version of Physical 100: the winners and finalists are rarely the biggest bodies. Mexico’s winner, Ángel Quintero, was a 38-year-old obstacle racer. Italy’s final six had two judoka, a firefighter, a surfer, a DJ and a footballer. Not one bodybuilder.
Football builds exactly what this show tests most: repeated hard efforts with short recovery, quick changes of direction, and a high power-to-weight ratio. Thirty years of sprinting and stopping on a pitch is a better base for a 20-minute obstacle course than a big bench press. The push-of-war, which rewards size and leg drive, only came after he was out.
Pull-ups, where he finally lost, are a test of strength relative to bodyweight, and Bruno, a judoka who grips and pulls for a living, had the edge in the end.
Train like a Physical 100 finalist
You don’t need a football club to build Sartori’s kind of fitness. The parts of his game that carried him through the final are trainable in any gym:
- Repeat sprints. Run 6–10 hard 20–30-second efforts with 60–90 seconds of walking between them, once or twice a week. That’s the engine behind a five-lap obstacle course.
- Pull-up endurance. The final came down to pull-ups. Our pull-up guide covers how to get your first rep and then add more.
- Grip. Long hangs decided episode 7 and the pull-ups decided the final. Build up your dead hang time and the grip carries over to both.
- Mixed conditioning. Running plus carries, sled work and bodyweight moves, the way a HYROX race combines them, is the closest gym match to the show’s events. For a no-equipment option, try our free 28-day military calisthenics plan.
Matteo Sartori FAQ
Who is Matteo Sartori on Physical 100: Italy?
A 34-year-old striker from Cattolica who plays semi-professional football in Italy. He finished third on Physical 100: Italy.
Where did Matteo Sartori finish on Physical 100: Italy?
Third. Emanuele Bruno beat him in a sudden-death pull-up tiebreak for a place in the decider, which Bruno then won against Tommaso Nisi.
What team does Matteo Sartori play for?
Matelica, in the Marche Eccellenza, which he joined in September 2026 after winning promotion with Fano.
How old is Matteo Sartori?
He was born in 1991 and said on the show that he’d been chasing a ball for 34 years.
Who won Physical 100: Italy?
Judoka Emanuele Bruno won the €100,000, with firefighter Tommaso Nisi runner-up and Sartori third.
