“The Olympic fire has been lit for Paris 2024, now it’s up to us to bring a spark inside all of you, that brings something to you, especially today in the Paralympic world”. And then the notes of the Italian anthem, on which Ilaria Guermandi, an excellent wheelchair dancer from In.Da.Co, performs, while behind her pass the images of the Paralympic ambassadors and the historic Italian hat-trick in the 100m final. women’s meters category T63 at the Tokyo Paralympics, one of the highest moments of that amazing summer of sport for Italy.
We move on to the authorities, with the prefect Massimo Marchiesello present to talk to the young people about the social value of sporting activity. It is therefore the turn of the real protagonists to take the stage: Casp, the Paralympic Sports Introduction Centre, one of the excellences of our territory, is presented with its director Mauro Borghi, who is joined, as an example of a professional club, which like all others cannot be ignored, the experience of Spal with its SPeciALissimi, a project dedicated to children with intellectual disabilities aged between 7 and 14 illustrated by Laura Semprini of the Spal Foundation.
The heart of the meeting with the students is the historical-cultural reconstruction of the presenter, Mirko Rimessi, “From the Olympic Games to the Paralympics, the story of how Sport for people with disabilities has traveled through history, writing fundamental pages!”, with the presentation of the symbolic figures of the neurosurgeon of Jewish origin Ludwig Guttmann, the revolutionary of rehabilitation, and of the Italian doctor Antonio Maglio, father of the Paralympics, which leads to the emotional story of the Paralympic athletes present in the room: starting from Bologna’s Federico Mancarella, Paralympic ambassador, Paralympic bronze medalist in canoe sprint KL2 in Tokyo 2020, born with spina bifida and very close to the activity of the Canoa Club Ferrara and our Casp centre; we then move on to the Ferrara experiences with the paralympic rower of the Cus Luca Lunghi, competing at the Rio 2016 Games, and the very young Azzurra Bovina Bambini, para-powerlifter also of the Cus, Italian champion and record holder and Seif Eddine Gasmi, paralympic canoeist of the Canoa Club Ferrara, Italian and Italian champion. With them we deal with many issues, from classification, to the types of disabilities to the ways that lead a person to acquire them, analyzing the differences that this entails.
The provincial delegate of the CIP Giuseppe Francesco Alberti recalled the numbers of the Italian Paralympic Committee and expressed great satisfaction with the success of the morning, and then invited Paolo Govoni, present as president of the Rotary Ferrara Est, and Sergio Mazzini, to the stage. president of Avis Comunale Ferrara, who recalled the importance of donation as blood and blood products are essential life-saving drugs in the operating room, and relaunched the DONAlympic Games project for the Ferrara sports world.
It ends with the images of Sport Is Live/Live from last year, launching the edition that will return to animate Piazza Ariostea on 5 October with the Paralympic day in memory of Fabio Falchetti, an event that will close the newly opened educational path.
Tags: Ferrara embraces Paralympic athletes
