There is a lesson greater than the simple sporting success, in the gold medal that the The foil boys scored a hit today at the World Championships in Tbilisi. Overlapping sport with life is always risky and perhaps even deceptive, but if there's a discipline, if there's a specialty that reflects the true essence of Italy—with its fragilities and abilities, its weaknesses and its ability to rise from the ashes, its identity born from the sum of the identities of its municipalities—it's fencing, it's foil.

The Azzurri world champions, trained by the coach Simone Vanni, are Guillaume Bianchi, Filippo Macchi, Tommaso Marini and Alessio Foconi, they set tothe gold medal in the neck after one crazy final against the United States