Mayor Rinaldo Melucci at the inauguration of Camposcuola Valente
(By Antonio Bargelloni) The inauguration of the school camp, which has just taken place, has a symbolic value for Taranto that goes beyond the event – albeit historical – linked to the queen of sports. It represents – must represent – a real sign of awakening for a city that for too long, too long has literally snubbed a sector of vital importance for any community such as grassroots sport.
Yes, because the Salinella structure, although transformed into a small athletics “stadium”, I hope, must not lose its main function, that is, being a “nursery” available to young talent as well as a point of reference for all local “track and field” enthusiasts, both members and non-members, but also from clubs of other disciplines who want to carry out athletic training in an ad hoc structure. It is no coincidence that for several years the structure has been named in memory of Giuseppe Valente, an unforgettable figure who in his unfortunately short existence covered the roles of athlete, instructor, athletic trainer and amateur runner.
I do not hide my disappointment in seeing that it took many, too many decades to move from words to deeds: the facility built in 1971 had only undergone one restyling (never really completed…) in the distant 1989, a good 35 years ago, in the meantime in other Italian cities similar structures (the athletics camps were born in the 60s on the intuition of the then Fidal president Bruno Zauli) have undergone cyclical renovations. But after all, we Taranto residents should be used to biblical times, in terms of sports facilities, if I think of the “prolonged temporariness” of the Salinella in Innocenti pipes by Michele Di Maggio and the decades that passed to see a municipal sports hall…
Speaking of delays. At the inauguration, Taranto sports – and not only – hopes that, over the next two years, many other similar events will follow, thanks to the impetus of the now close Mediterranean Games; as is well known, other renovations have finally been planned or redesigned (Iacovone stadium, PalaRicciardi) and new constructions (swimming stadium, nautical center) which will transform it into an important sports center at a national level. Too late? It has certainly become an absurd race against time, a sort of… relay marathon whose baton has passed through too many hands since that distant 2019, the year the Games were awarded. In 2026 it will be understood whether Taranto if today’s event was the first leap of a city projected into the future through sport or the umpteenth disappointment of a cursed city, destined to live only on memories of the glories of a very distant past and cry of itself to infinity.
