BASEL (SWITZERLAND) (ITALPRESS) – The “final with a bang” is the Dream Team champions of Europe. The Italian women’s foil is still golden and confirms – or rather, legitimizes – Italy’s triumph in the medal table of the European Championships in Basel 2024. Arianna Errigo, Martina Favaretto, Francesca Palumbo and Alice Volpi dominate Poland in the final and stand tall over the highest step of the podium on the sixth and final day of the continental event in Switzerland, giving away the 11th Italian medal (5 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze). Not only that: coach Stefano Cerioni’s team also achieved the arithmetic certainty of 1st place in the world team ranking of foil players, and will therefore be seeded number 1 in the Paris Olympic Games draw.
Arianna Errigo, Martina Favaretto, Francesca Palumbo and Alice Volpi made their debut by beating Austria with a score of 45-36 in the quarterfinals. Cynical and implacable, in the semi-final the Italian foil players always had the match against Hungary in their hands, gaining the pass for the last act with the eloquent result of 45-17. The final against Poland represented yet another test of strength for the Dream Team. Always ahead, since the dawn of the match, the athletes of the technical commissioner Stefano Cerioni have spread and closed with a 45-27 which faithfully reflects the superiority shown on the platform, thus climbing for the third consecutive time on the top step of the podium in a European Championship – after Antalya 2022 and Krakow 2023, and it is the 15th overall victory for the Italian women’s team foil on the continental field – and making the Mameli anthem resonate for the fifth time this week in Switzerland.
“We are a Diesel, 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 Alice 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 captain Arianna Errigo. “We have formed a compact group, which helps each other and never gives up. With this spirit we look forward to the next race with ever more confidence”, smiles Francesca Palumbo. She smiles, because “the next race” is the Olympics, the first for both her and Martina Favaretto, who comments: “Yes, now the emotion is growing but this victory also gives us a lot of energy and further certainties in the path that will lead in Paris”.
In the men’s sabre, however, after the historic hat-trick in the individual competition, Italy’s race led by coach Nicola Zanotti stopped in the quarter-finals, finishing in 5th place. The Italian team made up of Luca Curatoli, Michele Gallo, Luigi Samele and Pietro Torre surrendered with a result of 45-37 to Romania, seeing themselves diverted to the rankings board. Here the Italian sabers beat France 45-41 and subsequently also prevailed over Georgia (45-27) in the challenge for 5th position. “We didn’t get excited after the individual and we won’t be discouraged by this missed medal – commented captain Luigi Samele -. The European Championship is a lead-up to the Olympics and we are leaving with the awareness that our fencing level is high and that in Paris we can aspire to a result that reflects our value.”
Italy thus closes the 2024 European Championships in Basel with 11 medals and success in the Nations Medal Table ahead of France (which has 8 in total, 4 of which are gold).
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 conclude an excellent European Championship, full of satisfactions and which we honored in the best possible way even though it inevitably represented a stage towards the great event of the Olympic Games. For other countries that will not be in Paris it was an objective competition, while in some cases we arrived with large workloads, despite this this event gave us an excellent balance and made us experience many intense emotions that project us towards the Olympics with even more enthusiasm and desire to play our cards at all costs. A round of applause to all the boys and girls, their coaches and the entire staff who, as always, supported our teams with punctuality and professionalism, playing a fundamental role in obtaining the results achieved on the pitch”. Furthermore, today, during the Closing Ceremony, the flag of the European Fencing Confederation, chaired by Giorgio Scarso, was passed from Basel to Genoa, the city which will host the first European Fencing Championship from 14 to 19 June 2025. four-year Olympic period. Nicola Orecchia and Camillo Rosano, members of the Ligurian organizing committee of which Giuseppe Costa is president and Giovanni Falcini coordinator, received the flag together with the federal president Paolo Azzi, thus officially starting the journey towards Genoa 2025.
– photo Federscherma –
(ITALPRESS).
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