There is the “double flavour” theory that we would like to propose to you on the occasion of the historic feat of the Baldassarre school of Trani which became Italian Champion at the Student Athletics Championships held in recent days in Pescara. On the one hand, the sweet taste of glory (unexpected, as an outsider on the eve, compared to other schools) achieved with great team work.
A work carried out for several years now by various members, personalities, actors of a school stage such as that of Baldassarre which this season has achieved successes in various sports disciplines. On the one hand, therefore, the sweet taste of victory obtained with commitment and sacrifices, stubbornness in believing in the undertaking and the ability to come together, form a team, from recent years, as we were saying, until January 2024, when the accurate training, studying and enhancing the profile of each athlete, testing and testing the particular abilities of each one between trials and training, the creation of athletes who constitute, in perspective, as they say today, possible future champions, without losing sight of the spirit of sacrifice and humility.
The actions of the various school components capable of achieving this feat were oriented on this ridge: first and foremost them, the boys rich in strength and instinct, a winning spirit, almost all of whom started from scratch as far as athletics is concerned since they came from other disciplines but everyone is available to cooperate, get involved, achieving, each with their contribution, a true team victory, which has overcome individual individualities, still not fully expressed, always one step below the great ability to win as a team compact, relentless and impeccable.
Immediately after those who oriented and channeled these skills in the best possible way, from their coach Raffaele Musicco, to the coordinator of the Department of Motor Science, Paola Mauro, teachers completely devoted to the (winning) cause, together with all the other motor science professors who they gave their contribution in identifying talents, testing the times and profiles of individuals, refining skills. Prof Musicco is keen to underline the feat achieved in “prohibitive” conditions in a city that does not offer the availability of sports facilities, especially for athletics (the triumph is even more gratifying for him and his colleagues who made up for it with their skill to this gap), and this is the second flavor, the acrid, more bitter one, offered by this story of ordinary “madness”: having an Italian athletics champion school in a city where structures are scarce. And it is even rarer, for this very reason, for a school from the South to win the national championships. And the bittersweet flavor is also found in the expression of another great protagonist of the enterprise, the school director Marco Galiano, who has always believed in this possibility of enhancing students through sport, but must also convey to himself and to the citizenship is the other side of the coin of this story, once again a bit bitter: working, and seeing teachers and children working in the presence of precarious structures (it has been asking the Administration for months and months to redo the ruined and devastated flooring of the external lateral and front atrium of the school, which should and could serve as an outdoor gym, but nothing, no response and no intervention.)
But here emerges again, stronger than anything, the sweet flavor of the undertaking, stronger than anything: that of the awareness on the part of a school like Baldassarre which has managed to reward merit, which has also been able to gratify the teachers, protagonists of a historic year for sporting activities and which are headed by the CSS, the School Sports Center which brings together forces and individual personalities (and is coordinated by Professor Giuseppe Laminafra) called to a complex job of coordination and promotion of the activities.
But it seems right to close by recalling the names of the individual actors protagonists of this unforgettable story:
Alessio Fasciano, 80 m hurdles and relay; Domenico Zeno Torella 1000m; Michele Piccininni 80 m and relay; Andrea Garofalo vortex throw and relay, Fabio Ierrobino long jump and relay; Alessandro Carbutti shot put, Andrea Ciliento high jump.
THE RANKING: CADET Team ranking
