ROME (ITALPRESS) – Exactly six months to June 26, the date of the elections of the Coni and CIP top management, but in the meantime, as it often happens at the end of the year, it is time for a balance sheet for Italian Paralympic Committee President Luca Pancalli. On the future, he admits in an interview with Italpress: “I am reflecting. I don’t like to think of the future as results to be obtained, but as things to be done, that are feasible, where I understand that there can be an idea of action, a project dimension. It is clear that I have many projects in my head, obviously most of them related to the world of sports, because I have dedicated my life to sports, but not only.” When there are only a few days left until the end of the year, rewinding the tape, the images of a memorable 2024 are many. “The gold in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay on the last day, the crowd that crowded the facilities, Ambra Sabatini’s fall. But above all, a very important one, that of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella present at the Opening Ceremony and at the Village canteen together with our athletes. An image that will remain iconic. And then the visit of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the presence of Ministers Abodi and Locatelli. Frames that tell of a small sports world that is perhaps doing small things in the eyes of many, but great things for so many people,” Pancalli explains. But the balance sheet “of a year, as of a four-year period, cannot be the result of only the last image seen in the film, it must be the construction of the whole film,” the Cip’s number one further highlights. “Obviously Paris was the consecration of a work and a sports policy put in place that produced the hoped-for fruits, which were the goal. We arrived in Paris with the largest delegation of all time, with 53 beginners, and this gives an idea of how important the work done was and gives us the measure of a path in continuity, which attempts to interpret the present but already looking to the future. And then the sixth place in the medal table, which is a more than extraordinary result. Then there is that extra medal that I ascribed to communication, starting with Rai. Because, if Paris left a mark it was also thanks to communication. The most beautiful medal that the international Paralympic movement got was the sale of more than two million and 400 thousand tickets, and this led to full facilities, which filled our hearts and excited our athletes.””This was just the final act of a year and a four-year period, but then there is everything that is not seen and narrated much less: the start-up campuses for girls and children with disabilities on summer and winter sports, all that has continued to be done with universities, more than 20 public universities with which we collaborate, the activities on prosthetics with Inail, etc. And then of course there is the invaluable work of the Federations, grassroots sports clubs, Sports Promotion Bodies, State and Military Bodies, coaches, families and all those who dedicate their lives and time to sports, from the competitive to the amateur dimension. So if I had to give a grade to the Paralympic year, as a perfectionist I would give an 8 with great confidence,” the Cip’s number one recounts further. Even on a personal level, Pancalli’s balance sheet “can never be negative, also because going around, after Paris, more and more often I receive, from people I meet on the street, handshakes and thanks, and this gratifies me because it gives meaning to what we do. Our work is not immediately visible. Paris, coupled with the awareness of those people who stop us on the street, gives me pleasure. So my personal balance sheet is definitely positive, then you realize that you can always do more, and that our duty is to transfer to the generations to come that responsibility and awareness to reach where we have not reached.” The wish for the Italian Paralympic family for 2025 “is to continue to grow as it has been able to grow, never losing sight of the awareness of looking back with respect to what needs to be done because, if we lose humility in action we become a company, and we are not a company, we are a public body that takes care of a general interest, and I believe that the duty of a public body is that. – Pancalli concludes – I wish Italian sport to continue to have the same successes, and I hope that in the face of the successes there will be an increasing awareness of the need to make sure that all the players in the playing rectangle can play the same game, with the same goal, with the awareness each of their roles. For the good of the sporting country, we need systemic action. The hope is that we can truly realize the importance of motor education in schools, the only place where the right to sports can really and concretely be exercised. I believe in the value of politics, which lies in the ability to build tools, albeit in the opposition of ideas, and to be able to create a capacity for dialogue, because from dialogue, even in opposition, concrete things can be born. We must always be guided by the knowledge that alone none of us can achieve anything, we all serve.”- photo Italpress -(ITALPRESS).
