Italy has qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics with the men’s team and will thus be able to deploy five athletes on the platform of the French capital. Our national team will return to the Games with the entire lineup after the absences of Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, among other things it will do so after having triumphed at the 2023 European Championships and having touched the podium at the 2022 World Cup. The tricolor movement has grown exponentially in recent years and will try to fight for a historic medal in the team eventbut DT Giuseppe Cocciaro will inevitably have to make choices.
In the team that will compete on transalpine soil Will there be room for some pure specialists or will the focus be exclusively on gymnasts capable of providing a broader contribution from a team event perspective? In the last major events we have gone in this direction: at the 2023 and 2024 European Championships the coach fielded the same five men, namely Yumin Abbadini (fresh from the all-around bronze in Rimini), Lorenzo Minh Casali, Matteo Levantesi, Mario Macchiati, Marco Lodadio; at the 2023 World Cup Nicola Bartolini replaced Lodadio (the Sardinian was not in perfect condition last spring and is recovering this year too).
The feeling is that Abbadini, Bartolini, Casali, Levantesi, Macchiati are the candidates to take part in the Olympics, but this would mean deprive yourself of other possible medal cards. Above all Carlo Macchini on the barre and Salvatore Maresca on the rings. Just the Campania had a great opportunity to give a clear signal, but unfortunately in the final of the European Championships he made a blatant step at the end of the year and finished in seventh place: with that error he lost at least three tenths and was unable to fight for a medal that could have been within his reach (he would still have needed a 14.900 to get on the podium). Will the 30-year-old be able to get back into the game? And will Macchini, last year’s silver medalist at the European Championships, have a chance? Puzzle being solved with three months left until the Games.
