From June 30th to July 5th, the XVII edition of the “Festival del Sole” will be held in Riccione, the most important free gymnastics happening in Mediterranean Europe, with the acrobatic gymnastics teams of 17 European countries but also those of Brazil and those of the Kokushikan University of Tokyo. “They will arrive 2,600 athletes from all over the world, represented by 90 teams, ready to give the public 80 hours of entertainment in three different arenas: Piazza Roma, Giardini and Nord”: Maurizio Ascani, director of the Festival, he rattles off the data with evident satisfaction. This year the Festival of the Sun will be an integral part of the Sportpertutti Fest Uisp, currently taking place between Rimini and Riccione and during the days of July 4th and 5th will see the gymnastics crew merge with the Uisp volleyball crew, which has arrived on the Romagna Riviera for the national finals: a mega-gathering of young athletes that promises sparks.
It’s called “Festival del Sole” but if you get a little closer and try to understand more about sportforallit is clear that this is the right occasion. Sportpertutti, proper name, all in a row, a single word to indicate a trend, a celebration, a new way of conceiving sport, without judges or referees. And not even very smooth and identical playgrounds: the “Festival del Sole” is a street sport, grassrootsspontaneous movement that comes from below, the DNA of the sport for all European.
“And that’s why l‘Uisp has always supported the Festival del Sole and his vision – he says Paola Morara, national manager of the Uisp Gymnastics Activity Sector – because it fully interprets our philosophy: openness to all, involvement of people of all ages, the possibility of feeling protagonists through physical expression, the pleasure of being together with others and having fun. Not only that: lthe next edition of Giocagin 2025the Uisp Gymnastics festival held in dozens of Italian cities, will be twinned with the Festival del Sole. This means that the explosive spectacular and international charge of the Festival will be added to Giocagin’s capillarity and its ability to also involve small ASDs and sports clubs in the area. Not only through gymnastics but also with other Uisp activities, from skating to dance, from oriental disciplines to other team activities”.
And in fact the relationship between Festival del Sole, Uisp and Giocagin has distant roots and has a name whose vision has been able to permeate thirty years of Uisp history. It is about Oddone Giovanetti, among the founding fathers of Uisp, leader of Uisp gymnastics and prophet of a new and irregular way of interpreting one of the most codified disciplines, that of gymnastics.
What are the origins of the “Festival del Sole”? It’s a story worth telling, thanks to the reconstruction of two pioneers of gymnastics for all in Italy, Maurizio Ascani and Paola Morara.
“With Oddone Giovanetti in 1989 we organised the first edition of the Festival del Sole – he recalls Maurizio Ascani – then with around 1000 gymnasts. We had managed to realize the idea of sport for everyonein fact Oddone’s intuitions married very well with what was already happening in Northern Europe, where competitive gymnastics existed but sport for all had a much greater social, political and cultural relevance. In Riccione there was this first experiment with gymnastics for all, which Oddone then called ‘the gymnastics’to further strengthen the idea that there is not just one type of gymnastics, competitive gymnastics, but there are many, especially when the person and not the result is the center of attention.”
“The story of this Uisp research with the person in the centerhas roots that date back to the late 70s – he recalls Paola Morara – in those years we began to meet between sports clubs that came from Tuscany, with Mary Grace Catani, and from Emilia Romagna, with my contribution and that of Giovanetti. The first festivals were born with free performances which at the time had inter-regional characteristics. From those first experiments the idea of the Uisp Gymnastics League was born, that’s what they were called at the time and Oddone Giovanetti became its president”.
Then, in the mid ‘80 Uisp proposes Giocagin: “The invention started from a series of elaborations, with mainly didactic purposes, between me and Oddone Giovanetti – continues Ascani – namely: ‘play with gymnastics’. To promote the idea that sport was not just a technical achievement. With Uisp we experimented with many activities, it was a story full of depth because we wanted to launch the idea that sport was not something reserved for a select few”. A long journey, which found fertile ground in Uisp and which is due to collective creativityas a group: just like one of the many performances that you can admire at the Festival del Sole in Riccione.
by Ivano Maiorella
