It is all ready. The spotlights will illuminate Rimini, which for two weeks will be the European stage for men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics. There are 37 Federations participating in the 36th European Senior and Junior Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Championships, starting today until Sunday. The Women’s European Championships, however, will take place from 2 to 5 May. The event will be hosted in pavilions A7-C7 of the Rimini Fair, which will welcome 4,600 spectators and over 300 athletes. The international event will be documented and broadcast by 25 nations. Among the many medals, qualification for next summer’s Olympics in Paris is also up for grabs. The prestigious pass has already been snatched by the Italian national team who will only compete, so to speak, to add more medals to their palmàres. And it is also through a good performance in Rimini that individual athletes can secure a place in the Italian expedition for the Olympics in the French capital.
The Italgam delegation arrived in Rimini last weekend together with all the other national teams, in order to better interact with the competition equipment. In fact, last Monday the senior Azzurri tried their hand at the podium test, training on the official continental platform. Yesterday it was the Italbaby athletes’ turn to become familiar with the equipment.
A heavy responsibility lies with the Italian athletes who will have to defend last year’s triumph in Turkey and to do it as best as possible the technical director Giuseppe Cocciaro has called up the reigning champions Yumin Abbadini, Matteo Levantesi, Marco Lodadio, Lorenzo Casali and Mario Macchiati. Salvatore Maresca will also start with the Fgi quintet and will compete as an individualist for the All Around title.
The senior qualifications divided into three subdivisions start today. The Azzurri have been drawn in the third and final division and will begin the round from the bar after Israel. This first day will bring the names of the eight teams destined for Sunday’s finals, together with the octets of the finals by apparatus; but also the first individual medal of the All Around title.
Federico Tommasini
