More and more, it is sports that have Italy being talked about around the world as a winning nation. If 2021 was the magic year ever, with Italian athletes winning in every sports competition in which they participated, 2022 closes with just as many successes in dozens of international events.

The first victories in chronological order came earlier this year at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijng, where Italy ended the five-ring event with 17 medals, the second best result in Azzurri history after the 1994 Lillehammer edition (20 medals). In Beijing, among the Italian successes was the surprising one in the mixed curling event, won by Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner.

And then the many medals won by the most famous Italian athletes: Arianna Fontana (gold and two silvers in short track), Francesca Lollobrigida (silver and bronze in speed skating), Federica Brignone (silver and bronze in alpine skiing), Sofia Goggia (silver in alpine skiing) and Dorothea Wiever (bronze in biathlon).

As winter has passed, the great series of victories of another magical Italian summer has arrived. First of all, it is fair to start with an entire sports movement, that of volleyball, which has dominated in every category possible. From the Under 16 to the major teams, Italy has won almost all the men's and women's European and World Championships, with the two most important victories achieved by the men's national team, which won the World Championship in Poland twenty-four years after its last success, and the women's national team, which instead won the Volleyball Nation League for the first time. No nation in the history of volleyball had ever managed to win in a single year all the trophies won in 2022 by Italy, which thus set a record perhaps unmatched in time.

From volleyball to swimming, the Azzurri's feats were equally incredible. At the World Championships in Budapest, Italy finished third in the medal table for the first time in history with 22 medals, behind only the super powers United States and China, and ahead of the now former powerhouse Australia. In just a few days, Gregorio Paltrinieri, Nicolò Martinenghi, Gabriele Detti, Thomas Ceccon, Benny Pilato, Lucrezia Ruggiero, and Giorgio Minisini, to name a few, belted medals in every specialty in the pool. And a few weeks later, the European Championships were held in Rome, with Italy winning the final medal count with a record number of 67 medals!

Athletics also provided great satisfaction at the European Championships in Munich, finishing with a haul of 11 medals, including three gold, the likes of which had not been seen in decades. Olympic 100-meter and 4x100 relay champion Lithuanian-American Marcell Jacobs won his first European title, just as Olympic high jump champion Gianmarco Tamberi won gold and Yeman Crippa, the Ethiopian-born Italian, claimed victory in the 10,000-meter race.

Also in the German city of Munich, the European Championships in other disciplines were also held, and Italy won plenty of gold medals!

In track cycling, gold for the great champion Elia Viviani in the elimination trial, for Rachele Barbieri and Silvia Zanardi in the Madison specialty and again for Rachele Barbieri in the Omnium.

In rowing, victories in the women's light weight four pair for Giulia Mignemi, Paola Piazzolla, Silvia Crosio and Arianna Noseda, in the men's four pair for Nicolò Carucci, Andrea Panizza, Luca Chiumento and Giacomo Gentili, in the men's single for Giacomo Perini, and in the men's light weight four pair with Antonio Vicino, Martino Goretti, Niels Torre and Patrick Rocek.

In canoeing, gold for Andrea Di Liberto and Manfredi Rizza in the 200-meter K2 and for Federico Mancarella in the 200-meter KL2.

At the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Israel, however, Asia D'Amato won the all-around competition, a feat never achieved by any Italian gymnast, and also won gold in the team competition along with Alice D'Amato, Angela Andreoli, Martina Maggio and Giorgia Villa.

Also in the summer came the second consecutive success, as never before, by an Italian at the Queen's Club Championships, the prestigious tennis tournament played on London's grass courts. The Italian tennis player, of course, is the great Matteo Berrettini.

And then in the fall, Italian athletes continued to amaze the world. Another incredible victory came from motorcycling, with Francesco "Pecco" Bagnaia, a twenty-five-year-old rider from Turin, who on his Ducati won the Moto GP world title exactly fifty years after the last success of an Italian rider on an Italian motorcycle (in 1972, motorcycling legend Giacomo Agostini won on his MV Augusta motorcycle).

On October 8, however, the phenomenal cyclist Filippo Ganna set a new hour record at the Velodrome Suisse in Grenchen by racing a distance of 56.792 kilometers and then became world pursuit champion for the fifth time. A final success that made all sports fans rejoice was that of Vito dell'Aquila, a gold medalist in taekwondo at the Olympic Games in Tokyo who won the world title in late November.