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# 81 JULY 18 , 2016
# 81 juLY 18 , 2016
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ITALIAN SPORT:
Rio 2016 Olympic Games,
Forza Italia!
By Simone Callisto Manca
After the good performance in London 2012 (eight place, 28 medals with
8 golds, 9 silvers and 11 bronzes) Italy
arrives at the Olympic Games in Rio with
the usual expectations: that of an average power of world sport, which aspires
to a place among the very first.
Among the medal hopes, the cover lies
no doubt on Federica Pellegrini. The Divine, as some call her, is to step farewell.
After the Olympics, at age 28, a very ad-
vanced age for a swimmer, she will retire.
But she wants to leave as a winner. These are her fourth Olympic Games and in
Rio she will have the honor of being the
flag bearer for the entire Italian team: an
appropriate recognition to an extraordinary career, with a single drawback, London 2012, that in fact Federica wants to
redeem from.
The second page goes to fencing, a traditional hotbed of medals for our sport.
Here we are undoubtedly the strongest
in the world, although in Rio - as a matter
of rotation between the various disciplines of fencing, which are not always all
present together at the Olympic Games
– there won't be one of the disciplines
we won most in the past: the women's
foil team. Besides, these will be the first
Olympic Games from a long time without Valentina Vezzali, who retired; but
Elisa Di Francisca and Arianna Errigo will
be there, together with the men's foil
and saber fencers teams, including the
timeless Aldo Montano, probably at his
last Olympic Games, too.
Turning to the queen of sports, track and
field, after difficult years it seems that
Italy again has someone able to compete for a medal: the high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi, current world indoor champion. The 24-year from Marche, a much
famous character also because of the extravagant superstition to race with half of
his face shaved and half not, is the man
on whom the Italian athletics bet more.
We'll hopefully and probably reach
other medals from sports such as shooting, boxing, diving, sailing, and there
will surely be some surprises: those that
unfortunately, in a country heavily monopolized by football, will last only the spa-
68 | WE THE ITALIANS
WE THE ITALIANS | 69
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