Archery, great Italy in Plovdiv. Now the rally for the World Cup

With a group that brought together seniors and juniors, Italy concluded the European Grand Prix in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, with an excellent haul of 7 podiums: 4 golds, 2 silvers and 1 bronze, which earned them second place in the medal table behind Turkey able to close the competition with 4 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes. And, if you think that the third place is Luxembourg which has scrapped three podiums, you understand what the performance level of the top two national teams has been. To earn the title as a great protagonist is certainly the athlete of the Gold Flames Chiara Rebagliati who, after the positivity at Covid which had compromised her call for the first stage of the World Cup in Antalya, returned from Bulgaria with a double gold prelude to the call-up for the second round of the Cup which will be held in Gwangju, South Korea, from 16 to 22 May. An appointment where Italy would like to confirm the performances obtained in Turkey, where she earned points for the world ranking, reaching silver with the men’s Olympic trio and fourth place with the women’s one. It will certainly not be an easy feat considering the forces on the field in the next international away match: the South Korean masters will play at home and China will also be on the field, two superpowers absent in Turkey.

The Italian podiums

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However, the results arrived last weekend from the European Grand Prix in Plovdiv give hope. Italy reached the top step of the podium with the Fiamme Oro athlete Chiara Rebagliati who, starter in Tokyo and at the subsequent World Championships, in this start of the outdoor season needed a performance of this level to earn the call for the Korea. The blue won in the individual by beating in the final, after the play-off, 6-5 (9 * -9) the French Caroline Lopez, but she had also celebrated the previous day together with Vanessa Landi and the junior Roberta Di Francesco with the team gold obtained by winning the final over the Netherlands 6-2. A not isolated result, given that even the men’s trio with Massimiliano Mandia, Yuri Belli and Marco Morello concluded the challenges of the team recurvo with the silver, arrived after the final lost 5-1 against Turkey. And if in the mixed duo Di Francesco-Belli had to settle for 4th place, after the final won by Slovakia 5-1, Italy greeted the Bulgarian trip by putting on the bulletin board also the podiums of the compound. In Plovdiv the Italian compondisti won the women’s gold with Bazzichetto, Roner and Tonioli winning by measure over Turkey 232-231, the gold in the mixed with Pagni and Roner (they also beat Turkey 154-152), the bronze with the Azzurri Pagni, Della Stua and Costantino who won the final with Serbia 228-212, while the junior Leonardo Costantino, in the individual, made his debut among the seniors, bathing him with an excellent silver after the very final won by the Turkish Haney 143 -141.

The summoned for the rally

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Overall we are talking about results that bode well also in view of the world cup, even if not all the interpreters present at the Grand Prix will be part of the group that will leave for South Korea. The technical director Giorgio Botto, assisted by the coaches Matteo Bisiani and Amedeo Tonelli, by the athletic trainer Jacopo Cimmarrusti and by the psychologist Manolo Cattari, has summoned the following athletes for the meeting that precedes the departure for South Korea: in the male recurvo the airmen Marco Galiazzo, Federico Musolesi, Mauro Nespoli, Michele Frangilli, Luca Melotto , Marco Morello and David Pasqualucci, the latter victorious from the Veronica’s Cup, the international race in Slovenia valid for the world ranking. Alessandro Paoli (Blue Flames) and Yuri Belli (White Eagle Archers) will also be part of the group. The female group present in the gathering will instead be composed only by the trio of the Fiamme Oro, which had been the owner in Tokyo: Chiara Rebagliati, Lucilla Boari and Tatiana Andreoli.