Tokyo: revolution in the ring, blue and women’s boxing

ROME – The Italy of Nino Benvenuti, Patrizio Oliva, Roberto Cammerelle and Clemente Russo risks not even bringing a boxer to Tokyo, but will have the pride of being represented by three athletes. A sensational fact, never recorded since 1920, but it is another sign that women’s sport is close to overtaking, even in a discipline that in pink only had access to the Games in London 2012.

As a reserve for an elite, women’s sport is now declined at a very high level in every discipline and in the year of the Tokyo Games it is also taking over in numbers.

Italy is an example of this with boxing: at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Paris – an event that was suspended in March 2020 due to the covid emergency – Giordana Sorrentino (51 kg), Irma Testa (57 kg), Rebecca mNicoli (60 kg) and Angela Carini (69 kg), the only ones to have won the right to cross boxing gloves under the symbol of the five circles in the Japanese capital.

For the Testa bell this is the second participation in the Olympics after Rio, where, however, the male colleagues had not won any medals.

The last hope of bringing a blue boxer to Tokyo is linked to the possible repechage of Salvatore Cavallaro (cat.75 mkg) who has good chances, being, according to the ranking, the third European player in his category. Those fished out with the ranking will be officially announced at the beginning of July. In Paris, the 22-year-old from Campania Abbes Aziz Mouhiidine (91 kg) and Simone Fiori (81 kg) missed the qualification.

Nothing to do even for Russo, who was denied the wild card requested by the FPI and the Coni, for sporting merits, given that the Campania has two Olympic silver and two world golds on the bulletin board. The “Tatanka” in the London tournament then suspended had not been able to enter the ring due to an indisposition, but was considered defeated and eliminated and therefore was denied the possibility of being fished out for the Paris tournament. A mockery.

At the moment, out of 15 disciplines the blue are the majority in seven: in addition to boxing, skeet shooting, sailing, pentathlon, artistic gymnastics, table tennis, judo. To date, 315 qualified blues (161 men, 154 women) in 30 different disciplines, with 73 individual passes.