PESARO A river of over three thousand people overwhelms Pesaro. The entire group of men’s and women’s teams, participating in the XII European Championship of Fimba, the International Maxibasketball Federation which includes athletes from 40 to 75 years old, cut the city center in two around 7.30pm yesterday. When a voting team, following their national flags, set off from the square of the “Tomato Ball”, as now also the men and women, who have only been here for a few days, have learned to call it square of freedom , it was impossible to understand where that long snake began and ended.
On my signal
But let’s start from the beginning, when around 6.30pm the teams began to fill the still sunny Piazza della Libertà to listen to the inaugural greeting from Mayor Andrea Biancani, in one of his first public outings: the usual welcome to the teams and best wishes to everyone for their respective competitions to officially start the tournament. In reality, some matches have already been played but there are at least 200 left to play, and we couldn’t wait any longer. Unfortunately, we must record the defeat of the women’s team made up mainly of girls from Pesaro who, however, fought with good spirit and will certainly make up for it later in the tournament. The mayor’s greeting was responded to by the Fimba authorities, the national president, the Argentine Augustin Lamas, and the European president, the Greek Paris Petras, with the obligatory and heartfelt thanks for the hospitality and welcome received. The Sports Councilor Mila Dalla Dora, who has been working on the organization of this event for two years, in synergy with the representatives of the accommodation facilities, praised and thanked everyone for the result obtained, recalling the precious contribution of the volunteers.
«A prestigious event – he said – of great impact for the city, which has demonstrated for years that sporting culture and basketball culture is a deep-rooted culture. The fact of being able to host this event – he added – in almost all the gyms in our city is a source of pride.” Then, as soon as the authorities concluded the ritual words of good omen, the teams set off to reach Piazzale Agide Fava, the ideal place to build a “village” for the athletes, who will surely appreciate knowing that which square carries the name of the person who imported and taught basketball to Pesaro and, without him, everything that followed would never have come true. But no more memories, as the teams begin to swarm from Piazzale della Libertà, the people of Pesaro gather and chat about the good times. Matteo Minnelli, local glory born in ’67, arrives to greet some old friends, former teammate or opponent.
The heat
We won’t mention names so as not to disappoint anyone, but there are truly many male and female athletes present who played on high-level parquets throughout Europe between the 90s and 2000s. There is so much warmth, the hugs are lost in the long human corridor of Viale della Vittoria, while Giuseppe Ponzoni, abandoning his playing shorts only for the occasion, like a new Moses, waves his long arms to make the human cord flow away faster and create less inconvenience to the inevitably blocked traffic, but you can see on his face the satisfaction for the enormous result achieved for the organization of the Fimba European Championships, repeating the success of 2008, but this time, with a tripled number of teams. Then, having arrived at the village, the “Babel” are ready to play: all 3000 of them in the square might not fit. It doesn’t matter, someone waits outside and takes photos of the Scavolini auditorium, which remains the old Hangar on a memorable evening. Then just squeeze in a little and enjoy the evening.
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