RIMINI – He kept millions of Italians glued to TV last summer, when he was the protagonist at the Tokyo Games until the last fight, eventually wearing a historic silver medal in the individual test around his neck. There is little to go around it, Mauro Nespoli is one of the stars, probably the most awaited, of the Italian Indoor Shooting Championshipsarco, scheduled from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 February in halls B5-D5 of RiminiFiera. In particular, the last two days of the event, organized by the Arco Club Riccione in synergy with the FitArco regional committee in full compliance with the anti-Covid protocols, will be dedicated to the recurve arch (all categories and age groups present), after which the barebow and then compound divisions will open the tricolor review. “It is a rather intense second half of February from a competitive point of view – declares the athlete born in Voghera on November 22, 1987 – since we have just returned from Slovenia, where at the Lasko Indoor European Championships we got on the third step of the podium in Olympic division team trial, while in the individual competition I stopped in the knockout quarterfinals after scoring the best score in the ranking round. An important indication of what my form may be. Indoor competitions have different characteristics from outdoor ones, wanting to use a similarity we could say like soccer compared to football: in addition to the shorter distance from the targets, positioned at 18 meters instead of 70, there is no disturbance of the wind or any other environmental factors, in substantially the physical effort is less but the mental component becomes even more decisive since the differences in values tend to flatten out a bit i and therefore, especially in direct comparisons, the margin of error narrows further “.
“High reasons for the Indoor Tricolors”
In other words, to aspire to the Scudetto (in 2021 it ended up on the chest of Marco Morello, another archer of the Air Force, the Sports Group of which Nespoli has been a member since May 2008) can be really many. “In the indoor ranking there are four athletes enclosed in three points and this means that there will be many contenders for the title. For my part, the motivations are high, also because my last individual indoor competition was in Rimini in 2013, before a long stop. until the last edition, when, however, the tricolor appointment was placed in the preparation and approach path for the Japanese Olympics. Among other things, they bind me to the Romagna city of beautiful memories and therefore I can’t wait to introduce myself on the shooting line of the Fair”.
“I’m not satisfied: Paris 2024 is in the sights”
Nespoli’s palmares is that of an absolute world-class archer: team Olympic gold in London 2012 and team silver in Beijing 2008, he was one of the architects of the triumph of the Italian national team at the World Cup held in October 2017 in Mexico City , bringing the Italian flag back to the top after eighteen years. The month before, at the Stadio dei Marmi in Rome, he had worn the silver medal at the World Cup final in the “Mixed Team” with Vanessa Landi around his neck. Precisely in the mixed pairs competition he had imposed himself together with Natalia Valeeva in 2015, at the first European Games, held in Baku (Azerbaijan), granting an encore alongside Lucilla Boari in 2019 in Minsk (Belarus), where he also hit the individual gold and team bronze. Until the five-circle exploit in the Japanese capital. “Silver in Tokyo did not change my life, maybe that result made me a little more popular even outside our sport, but I am always the same as before, certainly with an extra important laurel – underlines the blue – which weighs in terms of experience, awareness and conviction in one’s own means, looking at the next challenges. Yes, because I do not feel satisfied at all and in my very personal viewfinder I have put the Paris 2024 Games, which represent a strong stimulus for all athletes in the national team. The coronavirus has destabilized everyone a bit, but now it seems that we can return to normal and compete. And in the environment I have seen several archers who have a great charge inside to qualify for the Olympics and try to leave the sign”.
“It’s nice for a young man to be side by side with the champions of his sport”
In fact, the great family of the archery of the Peninsula is preparing to invade the city on the Adriatic coast, once again the capital for the fifth consecutive year and for the ninth time in the last ten years. And Nespoli knows he has so many eyes on him. “One of the best things about this kind of events is the possibility for the youngest to find themselves side by side with the sporting champions they practice, perhaps only seen on TV until then. A situation that I experienced myself as a boy , at the 1998 Youth Games, when I met Michele Frangilli, my idol, who accompanied his sister Carla. I was really at the beginning of my career with the bow but it remains an indelible memory. What fascinates me about this sport? which is the peculiarity of an individual discipline, the tensions and difficulties to overcome are yours alone, you cannot download them to others: you have to prepare the shot and shoot the arrow aiming to hit the target. And you have to repeat it many and many times. a continuous raising of the bar within oneself, there is never a real limit “.
“This year I aim to improve my record on 72 arrows”
Precisely with this in mind, the blue spearhead, which has the fox as its favorite animal and after seeing the Robin Hood cartoon had no doubts about what his sport would be, he has a clear goal for the season. 2022. “It is a year in which for the recurvo division there are no World Championships or decisive Olympic events, so I promised myself to improve my personal best on the 72 outdoor arrows, perhaps managing to exceed 700 points. And similarly. – concludes Nespoli – I aim to have continuity of performance in the stages of the World Cup where you find yourself competing with the best athletes on the international scene “.
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