Petanque Europeans, the blues win the silver medal

The medal is still silver. As in the 2018 European Championship in Palavas les Flots. And it is still France that stands between Italy and the continental title. Thus ended the tenth edition of the European women’s championship celebrated in the Spanish Torrelavega from 3 to 5 June 2020, where the blue Valentina Petulicchio, Mariangela Arcesto, Vanessa Romeo arrived one step away from their historic success, winning silver in the backhoe, and Monica Scalise finish fourth in the eighth edition of the precision shooting championship. The journey of the backhoe started with a defeat at the hands of Latvia (3-13), but our athletes promptly rearranged their ideas and brought out the best, with successes in succession against Estonia (13-4), England (13-11), Ukraine (13-5). After the qualifying phase in tenth place, Italy reached the semifinals thanks to the successes against Spain (13-4) and Latvia (13-0). In the antechamber of the final the Munich triad showed up and, although not playing to the maximum, Petulicchio and associates managed to access the final challenge by prevailing 13-7.

Satisfaction

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“Overall – said the coach Riccardo Capaccioni – the group worked well. The expert Romeo and Petulicchio were able to put the rookies Arcesto and Scalise at ease. If I have to give an overall score, I attribute a good eight and a half to the team. , with peaks of nine and a half for Arcesto. “This is how the Italian city lived the final.” We started badly, down for 0-6, but the price didn’t last long and we managed to resume the game, from the partial of 6 -2, at 6-4, 6-5, 6-6 and take the lead 9-6. At 5-6 we collected only one point, but we could have benefited more, considering the mistakes of the opponents. Unfortunately Romeo has the doublet failed and with two bowls in hand and a point on the ground, we did not add. At 9-6 Romeo’s double mistake cost us dearly and this time the French found the points for the advantage (9-10). later, an error in failure and an unfortunate carom, allowed the transalpine to close the match. Too bad, it took very little to worry them “.

Scalise fourth

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In precision shooting Monica Scalise made her debut in blue with a fourth place. Her 30 points served to face Belgium for entry to the podium, but a negative start affected the athlete’s performance. “In any case, I am happy with her performance – underlined Capaccioni – because she has shown that she has what it takes to maintain this level. The work will be arduous and hard, but she has the right character to face it”.