Ravenna, 24 June 2024 – The 67th Niballo Palio of Faenza turns green. In a packed Bruno Neri stadium despite the uncertain weather and with several people ‘bouncing’ at the gates to unavailability of tickets (which was also widely followed abroad, however it was the live broadcast on social media), which triumphed after a very long series of play-offs it was Messer Marco Diafaldi of the Rione Verde riding ‘Magia dei Sapori’.
The knight of Porta Montanara he repeated his victory in 2023 by winning a very successful edition addictive and quite fast in terms of time, in which, however, twenty regular sessions were not enough to reach a conclusion.
It was therefore necessary resort to three-way play-offs, in which, in addition to Diafaldi, Gertian Cela from Rione Giallo took part on ‘All Our Dream’, and Matteo Tabanelli on Lethal Grey. The three knights reached the play-offs with 5 shields each. Behind were Matteo Rivola from Rione Rosso and Luca Innocenzi from Borgo Durbecco in last place.
Over the course of the challenge series Giallo’s victory over Borgo weighed heavily (3rd round), the two victories of Black over Red (5th) and Green (7th), the victory of Red over Borgo (11th), the victory of Borgo over Black (15th), and the two victories of Green over Borgo and Red (19th and 20th ). Thus in the following interminable series of play-offs, to which was added the waiting time of over 25 minutes, the winner was the most skilled rider, although facilitated by one aspect: it would not have gone beyond the third play-off, following the opinion of the commission veterinary medicine, for the well-being of horses, and therefore we looked at last year’s ranking.
For the Green it is the ninth victory at Niballo. In the pre-race during the award ceremony for the best female figure, the ceramic unicorn made by Alexandra Massari was awarded to Giulia Marini of the Black Rione. The Red Rione instead won the prize for the best procession and for the best herald, played by Matteo Fiori .
