Italian men did quite well at the European Championships, qualifying five gymnasts to event finals and leaving the competition with a silver on rings won by Marco Lodadio.
For them, of course, the main goal is to have a great competition at the World Championships later this year and to qualify to the Olympics. They weren’t able to qualify as a team to Rio but placed 14th at last year’s Worlds and hope to climb a few sports up this year.
The solid performances of Nicolo Mozzato and Ludovico Edalli (13th and 15th respectively) indicate that this goal is definitely a possibility.
Edalli believes the Italian team is definitely on the right track:
“This competition started on a bad note, because unfortunately, I fell on rings, my very first apparatus. The rest of the routine was good, though, and so was the score, so I managed to fight back on vault and especially on p-bars, where I put up a clean routine even if I was a bit nervous. High bar was not great, but I managed to stay on: hopefully, I’ll do better during finals! Floor was amazing, I even surprised myself with how well I performed, but on pommels, I completely forgot to do a skill. I think I was just too tired at that point! Overall I’m very happy with my performance and with my teammates’, we are working very hard to improve and grow together. We now have a great team that is able to set its sights on the Olympic qualification: I think we are all very satisfied with the way these Championships went.”
Mozatto competed at senior Euros for the first time and is quite happy with this experience:
“Like Ludovico, I also started on rings, and I improved on my qualifying score. Vault was good, as always, while on parallel bars I think I could’ve done better. I was also disappointed after high bar, because I think I have underperformed this time. Floor was also good, I am most confident on this piece of apparatus, as well as on vault. Pommel horse was also good, I am happy with my routine. I’m definitely happy with the way my first senior European Championships went. Finally, we have a strong team with a single goal in mind – I couldn’t be more excited.”
Giuseppe Cocciaro, the men’s team coordinator, praised the team’s results:
“This was not a team competition, of course, but the overall team result was very good: with a similar score, we would have gotten bronze last year at Euros. We’ll keep working and focusing on Worlds, where we aim to perform at our best.”
Translation from Italian – Gaia B for Gymnovosti.
Video interviews in Italian are posted on Federazion Ginnastica d’Italia.
Photo: Federazione Ginnastica d’Italia.
