Paralympics: 141 Italians conquer Paris. From Sabatini to Mazzone and Bebe Vio

Paris, 27 August 2024 – 2021 September XNUMX, the day before the closing ceremony, on the same track that, just over a month earlier, had crowned Marcell Jacobs iemperor of the 100 meter dash that afternoon three girls wrote an indelible chapter in the Italian Paralympic history: gold, silver and bronze in the women's 100 meters category T63, medals that ended up around the necks of Amber Sabatini, Martina Caironi e Monica Counterfact.

Martina Caironi, Ambra Sabatini and Monica Contrafatto, all three on the podium in the 100 meters final

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The Tokyo record

The prosthesis in place of a leg, the speed in the blood, an epic day in a Paralympics which, for Italy, was a real record: 69 podiums in 11 disciplines for 14 gold, 29 silver and 26 bronze, with 39 medals from swimming and the Italians in the top 5 of the Olympic medal table in the pool. It happened three years ago, but on the eve of Paris Paralympics, which will officially begin on August 28th with the opening ceremony and will end on September 8th, the Italian expedition knows that it will have to try to outdo itself once again.

141 athletes competing

A delegation never so large, made up of 141 athletes, almost equally divided by gender (71 men, 70 women), ready to compete in the context of an edition that will see around 4.400 participants from 185 different nations. Speaking to Ansa Luca Pancalli, president of the Italian Paralympic Committee, explained that the numbers of the Italian expedition mean that "that the Federations, the technical staff, the basic sports associations and the military corps to which the athletes belong, and the Paralympic Committee itself, they worked well. And now let's keep our fingers crossed; the comparison with Tokyo can be very difficult, but we are optimistic." 

Just Ambra Sabatini and the eclectic Luke Mazzone – already a medalist in swimming and handbike – will be the Italian standard-bearers, once again in the name of Alex Zanardi, a sort of tutelary deity for all athletes, and of a country that represents the history of the Paralympics, in terms of iconic protagonists (precisely Zanardi, Bebe Vio, Assunta Legnante, Federico Morlacchi) and past.

Rome 1960 was the mother house, the alma mater of what the Paralympic Games would later become, and if it is true that the first edition, that of the Capital, brought Italy 80 podiums, it is also true that since then they have moved on six decades in which the movement, in terms of diffusion, numbers and awareness, has reached such levels (also in terms of competitiveness) as to make any comparison impossible and out of date. But from the idea and its first realization we have arrived here, in Paris, at the 17th edition. And who knows, perhaps it will be the most beautiful of all, regardless of the results.