Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
THEOur national sport is of course football. But the only sport in which we are a superpower is fencingsince the heroic times of Nedo Nadi and Edoardo Mangiarotti.
In recent decades, it has been women who have kept the record alivein particular the greatest Italian athlete of all time: Valentina Vezzali. Only that Valentina was not much loved by her companions; and this created problems in the team trials, solved thanks to her feminine intelligence.
At the 2012 London Olympics, Vezzali was beaten by Arianna Errigo in the semifinal, who in turn was defeated by Elisa Di Francisca in the final. Then all three, Valentina, Arianna, Elisa, were able to forget their rivalries bordering on enmity and all together winning gold in team foil.
This year the Fencing World Championships were held in Milan and were a great success. Not just public. The Tokyo Games had lacked gold; this time four arrived, which bode well for Paris 2024, in particular thanks to the splendid girls of the foil, from the veterans Alice Volpi and Arianna Errigo, to the rising star Martina Favaretto.
But we didn’t just talk about fencing. A Ukrainian athlete, Olga Kharlan, refused to shake hands with her Russian opponent. It was agreed that the touch with the blades, a traditional gesture of respect and greeting, would be enough. But the Russian staged a goal to disqualify her rival. The disqualification then returned, and the whole arena cheered on Ukraine, including athletes of various nationalities.
But what happened is a warning for the Paris Games. How to treat Russia? Pretend nothing happened? In recent years, Russian sport has been a tool of the regime, even with state doping. Apart from some generic statements, there hasn’t been a real distancing of the Russian sports movement from the war in Ukraine; nor probably could there be.
Russia is a regime: measuring support for a regime is always difficult; and even more difficult is to express dissent.
We all hope that between now and July 26, 2024, the date of the inauguration of the Olympics, the weapons will be silent. But if not? It will be appropriate to prepare precise rules, to avoid reviewing scenes destined to divide on the platform.
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All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.
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