About forty athletes braved the rain to protest the potential outcomes of an ongoing dispute between the Italian government and the International Olympic Committee
TRIESTE At the Tokyo Olympics, Italian athletes risk not being able to show the tricolor on their uniforms, nor to hear the anthem played before rehearsals: this is the potential outcome of an ongoing dispute between the Italian government and the International Olympic Committee, for protest against which about forty athletes and technicians of the Trieste Gymnastics, especially among the disciplines of fencing and judo, took to Piazza Unità today – January 23 – braving the rain.
“Flag and anthem identify a people, but also a source of pride for an athlete, who, after many privations and sacrifices, achieved during a period of hard training, climbs to the top step of the podium, at the end of a competition in which he given body and soul to overcome all limits and win all opponents ”- he declared Massimo Varrecchia, president of the biancoceleste association.
“However, – he continued – at the next Tokyo Olympics, for our Italian athletes all this could fail as Italy, our country, was again put under investigation by the International Olympic Committee which declared itself ready to open a dispute against CONI for a serious infringement of the principles of the Olympic charter ”.
“This is a persistent diatribe – underlined Varrecchia – between our government and the IOC, chaired by the former German fencer Thomas Bach, who, if by next Tuesday does not see the return of an Italian National Olympic Committee independent of the State, will be forced to prohibit Italian athletes (based on article 59 paragraph 1.4 of the Olympic law, ed) from competing with the colors Azzurri and the initials ITA on the suit, giving them the wording IOA (Independent Olympic Athletes, ed) with the consequent impossibility of hearing the national anthem played on the podium and being able to add the medals obtained within the Italian medal table “.
