Table tennis, in Lignano blue booty with a view of Paris 2024

In the Paralympic movement, table tennis is certainly one of the most inclusive sports (being divided into 11 classes based on the impact of the type of disability on performance) and one of the most practiced. You can play sitting or standing and you can hold the racket with any part of the body (some athletes without arms use their mouth). In Lignano Sabbiadoro, in the stage of the world tour valid for the assignment of qualification points for the next Paralympic Games in Paris, Italy takes home a haul of no less than four gold medals. Individually, the twenty-eight-year-old Pordenone from Zoppola Giada Rossi and the very young Matteo Parenzan from Trieste conquered the most precious metal.

From handbike to table tennis

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Giada, top blue player, is a class 2. Sportswoman since she was a child, she starts playing volleyball obtaining excellent results. In 2008 the accident: “A dip in the swimming pool at home caused the explosion of a cervical vertebra and the consequent tetraplegia. Eleven months of hospitalization and then, slowly, I started doing handbike, swimming and rifle shooting” The encounter with table tennis arrives at school: “In fourth grade Marinella Ambrosio arrives as a physical education teacher, at the time president of the committee Regional Paralympic of Friuli, which not only brought me back to the gym, but then pushed me to practice this discipline in a gym near my home – says Giada -. In 2012 you start with the first competitions and then in 2013 in Lignano the first Italian championships. It was the year of the Games and the federal center was in Lignano, so my adventure began. It was a turning point because four years after the accident I started playing sports again and from that moment I realized that it was a fundamental part of my life and it gave me that desire to embark on a path to make a dream come true”. In Lignano Giada filled up: ”I won three gold medals. In singles she class 2, in women’s doubles with Michela Brunelli and in mixed doubles with Federico Crosara. After the years of the pandemic, starting this tournament again was nice and winning at home always tastes different and exciting”. For Giada also the honor of winning medals at the Games: “Participating in a Paralympic Games is something very great. In Rio I crowned a beautiful dream, namely to win the bronze medal. In that moment I saw all the work done paid off. It was precisely this result that gave me the desire to continue pursuing my dream and making sacrifices to achieve ever greater goals – continues Giada – such as winning another medal in Tokyo with Michela Brunelli”.

Clear ideas

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Matteo Parenzan is not yet twenty but his ideas are already clear: “Sport has become a fundamental point in my life because thanks to this I was able to crown one of my greatest dreams, that of taking part in a Paralympic Games”. Also from Friuli, Matteo is a class 6 and suffers from nemaline myopathy, a rare disease that derives from muscular dystrophy characterized by muscle weakness and hypotonia. He knows table tennis in elementary school: “We played with classmates during recess and from there I understood that it could become the sport that allowed me to compete even with athletes without disabilities. For me it was great because I was able to play on par with my other peers.” Then comes the blue call: ”Three years after I started playing I was reported to the Paralympic national team and to the coach Alessandro Arcigli. After some training together I joined the Azzurri and I played in the first international tournament in 2015. It was the European youth team and I won the bronze medal”. Great satisfaction for him too in Lignano: ”Playing at home is always something extraordinary. I managed to keep a clear head and win the gold. The previous week I had defeated the number 3 in the world in Spain in a semifinal, then losing in the final with the number 1, so I arrived in Lignano knowing that we had worked well and that we had all the credentials to reach the end”.

World

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Last year, at the age of 19, Matteo became class 6 world champion in Granada: ”It was an indescribable emotion, especially when in front of you in the final you have a thirty-seven year old Thai athlete who had won a medal at every previous edition of the Games”. At the Tokyo Paralympics Matteo was one of the youngest in the delegation: “Many times they call me the record boy, because in Italy I was the youngest to win the Italian championships, the youngest to qualify for the Paralympics and the youngest to win a world title. The greatest joy was to be the standard-bearer at the closing ceremony, a huge responsibility. Participating in the Games at seventeen isn’t easy and it certainly left me with a great lesson on a mental level”. Table tennis is a true example of inclusion: ”I think it is one of the most inclusive sports. There are wheelchair players, standing players and players with intellectual-relational disabilities. It gives everyone the opportunity to play and compete thanks to the eleven classes on which it is structured”.

Veteran

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From the youngest to the most experienced. Michela Brunelli is the veteran and the team captain: ”I embraced table tennis way back in 1993, exactly one year after my accident. I have become so passionate about this discipline that it has become an integral part of my life. In 1996 I was called up by the national team and the following year I took part in the European championships in Stockholm. For me this sport has been a salvation, above all on a psychological level – Michela recounts – as the approach and comparison with other kids in wheelchairs has always made me see the glass as half full so as to face my new condition with positivity and to consequence my future life”. Four Paralympics for her: “Beijing 2008 was the first, where I won a silver medal in the team. Then came the bronze in Tokyo with Giada. Being in the movement for so many years gives us a great responsibility in making this sport known as a tool for social inclusion”. Two dreams in the drawer: “I see the first close at hand, i.e. qualifying for the Paris Games, the second, which I think is more difficult to come true, is to be able to receive an annuity once the competitive activity is over and I believe that for those who have worked and given so much to their country over time must also be recognized when the activity is completed”.