WTI Magazine #65    2015 July, 24
Author : Simone Callisto Manca      Translation by:

They are, in the queen of all sports, those who we could call, with a somewhat abused phrase, "The Best of Youth": girls and boys yet in school age who give back to Italy a hope in athletics, after years of darkness. From Eskilstuna, Sweden (European Junior) and Cali, Colombia (World pupils) arrive the results reassuring the movement of Italian athletics, after the glorious 70s/80s of Mennea, Panetta, Antibo and after the 90s of Fiona May: Italy has recently struggled not only to win medals, but often even to get to the final.

Let's start by the students of the IAAF World Youth Championships in Cali, where Italy won two medals: gold in the male high jump with Stefano Sottile and bronze in the 800 meters female race with Marta Zenoni. The one won by Sottile is the second Italian gold in the history of this competition (the first was conquered by Alessia Trost in Bressanone, 2009): the bar stopped at 2.20 meters, personal best of the young Italian athlete.

In Sweden, however, the result was nine medals: two gold, three silver, four bronze. In the finalist ranking, the Blues arrived first, with 27 athletes in final; instead, our team finished fourth in the points classification, and fifth in the medal count. The gold medals came from Yohannes Chiappinelli in male 3,000 meters hedges and from Pietro Riva in male 10,000 meters.

Finally, let's remember that from 24 July to 9 August, Kazan, Russia will host the 2015 FINA (acquatics) World Championship. Federica Pellegrini, Martina Grimaldi and Tania Cagnotto, in addition to Settebello (the National male water polo team) are the great Italian hopes of a medal.

Other events to follow during the sport summer will be the IAAF World Championships (athletics, in Beijing from August 22 to 30) and the FIBA EuroBasket 2015, held from September 5 to 20 in Croatia, Latvia, Germany and France.

Forza Azzurri!