The Italian women’s foil won gold at the European Championships in Basel, thus legitimizing Italy’s first place in the medal table. Arianna Errigo, Martina Favaretto, Francesca Palumbo and Alice Volpi dominated Poland in the final, giving the 11th medal to the Italian team, with 5 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze). Furthermore, coach Stefano Cerioni’s team also achieves the arithmetic certainty of first place in the world team ranking of foil players, and will therefore be seeded number 1 in the Paris Olympic Games draw. The Italians began by overcoming Austria with a score of 45-36 in the quarterfinals, then in the semifinals, they always kept the match against Hungary in control, gaining the pass for the last act 45-17. The final against Poland represented yet another test of strength for the Dream Team, who finished 45-27. “At the beginning of the day we suffered a bit against Austria, a tough opponent, then we put all our desire to win on the platform and the result showed”, said Volpi. “A splendid double for me, because winning the individual title again was nice but I really wanted to do it with my teammates. We are a great team”, the words of the captain, Errigo. In the men’s sabre, after the historic hat-trick in the individual competition, Italy’s run led by coach Nicola Zanotti, who finished in fifth place, stopped in the quarterfinals. Luca Curatoli, Michele Gallo, Luigi Samele and Pietro Torre surrendered 45-37 to Romania Full satisfaction for the president of the Italian Fencing Federation, Paolo Azzi: “The victory in the medal table is always a faithful snapshot of what has been done. We are closing an excellent European Championship, full of satisfactions, which we have honored in the best possible way and which projects us towards the Olympics with even more enthusiasm and desire to play our cards with all our might.”
