FLORENCE, June 13th, 2023 – The countdown to the XXVII Menarini Fair Play International Awards, in which legends of sport from around the world will be welcomed to Florence and Fiesole for a three-day event from 3rd to 5th July, has begun.
A novelty during the 2023 edition is the’Young Athletes’ category of the Fair Play Menarini Awards. This new category, devised to acknowledge the most significant gestures of “fair play” shown by young athletes, will be bestowed upon the three awardees on Monday, June 19th at 12pm during a press conference in Rome, in the Hall of Honours at CONI and hosted by President Giovanni Malagò, to present the XXVII edition of the Fair Play Menarini Awards. The three young recipients are fencer Mariaclotilde Adosini from Bergamo, fencer Emilia Rossatti from Ferrara and karateka Giorgio Pietro Torrisi from Catania.
“We often hear about young sportsmen and sportswomen who perform meaningful acts of fair play, promoting the values of ethics, loyalty and respect that the Menarini Fair Play International Awards have always exalted through the stories of sporting icons,” declared Antonello Biscini, Valeria Speroni Cardi and Ennio Troiano, members of the Board of the Menarini Fair Play Foundation. “With this new category, we intend to acknowledge those young athletes who, beyond their sporting merits, have shown that they are true champions of fair play.”
Mariaclotilde Adosini, born in 2005, grew up fencing in the ranks of Polisportiva Scherma Bergamo. She stood out for her great sportsmanship during the most recent Under 20 World Cup in Beauvais. Inaccurately proclaimed winner due to an arbitration oversight, Mariaclotilde agreed to return to the platform to repeat the last minute of the match, losing against her French opponent Juliette Baudinot.
Fencer Emilia Rossatti, who trained at the Bernardi Academy in Ferrara, handed over her Italian title and direct pass to the next Under 23 European Championships in Budapest to her opponent Gaia Traditi who was injured during the final of the Italian Fencing Championships last April. In the last seconds of the competition, the 22-year-old fencer stopped fighting for a comeback against the injured Traditi, letting time run out and allowing her opponent to maintain her advantage.
Giorgio Pietro Torrisi, a promising young Sicilian karate athlete, was only 10 years old when, in 2019, the story of his act of fair play made the headlines in Italy. Due to a scoring error, which had declared him the winner of his category at the International Edukarate of Aci Castello, the young karateka went back with his family to Syracuse to personally hand over his medal to the runner-up.
In addition, on June 19th, before this special moment dedicated to the three young athletes, the names of the prize-winners of the XXVII edition of the Fair Play Menarini Award will be revealed.
