It is the last frontier of racket sports, pickleball, and in the United States of America it is already establishing itself as an increasingly trendy mass phenomenon.
A direct descendant of tennis which – like ping pong (or table tennis), badminton and padel – revises some techniques and rules of its more famous ancestor, it is a discipline with an uncertain etymology, as opposed to a genesis that has been certified : 1965, the year of birth; Seattle, the place; three family fathers (Will Billy Bill Jr., Barney McCallum and ex-politician Joel Pritchard), the founders, whose intention was to design a new sport with guaranteed fun and within everyone’s reach. A yard the size of a badminton court, wooden rackets and a perforated plastic ball: these were the simple items that would later become the necessary equipment.
If recently in the Latin countries the new wave was launched by the padel (which is now very popular also in our parts), here in the States everyone plays pickleball. Thousands of US schools have it in their curriculum as a physical activity to be offered to their students, but it is a sport which, thanks to its easy learning curve and slower pace, attracts all age groups, including and above all the older ones. elderly people”. It quickly became the fastest growing sport in the country in the Stars and Stripes, with a range from 4.8 to 36 million people joining the craze in just a few years. In Italy, pickleball became known in 2018, the year of the foundation of the Italian Pickleball Association (AIP), based in Tocco da Casauria (Pescara), also officially recognized by the international federation (International Pickelball Federation). But it was 2023 that marked the turning point in the progressive diffusion on Italian soil: this year, in March, it was recognized by the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation (FITP) and the first promotional tournament was subsequently organized in Frascati.
On the wave of rampant enthusiasm, pickleball has recently arrived here in Parma too. For only about three months, a playground has been set up in the hamlet of Alberi di Vigatto to practice this “hybrid” sport: the chosen field is the basketball one in the marquee of the Alberi parish. There, together with some friends of the «Circolo Famija Alberese» and the Anspi «Gaione per Tutti» association, a non-professional league was born (Alberi Pickleball League – APL) which gave life to the first three stages of the tournament in July parmesan. Event not recognized at the federal level but which allowed many people to play a new sport. In Alberi they were the first ever to have imported this sport into the city, where in fact today a real field does not yet exist. But it might not take too long to see the construction of the first specimens, if pickleball-mania were to replicate the exploit already recorded by padel.
(Photo: Pickeball Trees)
2023-08-10 14:21:54
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