An evening dedicated to the weapons that unite, not divide. From historical fencing to modern fencing, it takes us back 40 years to Italy's triumphs in Long Beach and beyond. Cova, Dorio, Vaccaroni, and the "Son of the Wind" are also back.
It was enough to see Andrei Xuereb parading with his Malta Historical Fencing Association weapons and glimpse Vincenzo Palazzo Bloise in the background, standing tall in his white ITALIA sweatshirt, to see indelible images of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics pass before our eyes.
We were at the Friggieri Hall of the Valletta Design Cluster for the evening dedicated to "Fencing, What a Passion." The front row was graced by Her Excellency Valentina Setta, Ambassador—or Ambassador?—of Italy to Malta: originally from Abruzzo, a Campanian with a degree in law, a former Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, an expert on Poland, Montenegro, and the United Arab Emirates, she is a citizen of the world with a passion for yoga and cats!
During her visit, the Ambassador also appeared passionate about fencing. She then greeted Anna Porcheddu, founder of the Magic Box, which offers high-level matches every second Tuesday of the month, and flew off to honor an appointment with Warsaw diplomats present in Malta on the day (November 11) of the celebrations for the anniversary of the Second Republic of Poland. On the lid of the "Box" were representatives of foundations and associations that carry Italy around the world and have Malta in their hearts, as well as those who plant the University's flag everywhere, those who talk about sustainable ferry connections from Valletta to Sicily and Genoa, and those who look back to their homeland of Vicenza without missing Spritz and Prosecco.
Xuereb and the Palais Bloise continued endlessly in their historical revisitation of fencing, and our minds wandered toward LAX, meaning Los Angeles. More than fifteen years have passed—we write fifteen years so as not to remind ourselves of the temporal distance of those forty-plus years—since those Games, which represent the watershed moment between before and after our sports journalism.
It was the director Gino Palumbo who got us on board for California in the middle of a season already rich in chronicles written by, among other things, the Northern European classics (Johan Lammerts winner of the Tour of Flanders and Sean Kelly master of the Roubaix-Liège double), the Giro d'Italia (Francesco Moser with his Verona blitz against Laurent Fignon!) and the Tour de France (a repeat of the resurgent Fignon). What a year, that year.
So, we land in Los Angeles. Procedures are not cumbersome at all. "Universal" passes are obtained at the airport without having to go through the Main Press Center, as in previous editions. The Italian 4x100 quartet is ready for gold thanks to Marcello Bartalini, Marco Giovannetti, Eros Poli, Claudio Vandelli (not to be confused with Maurizio of Equipe 84), and the... lenticular wheels brought to the fore by Moser in Mexico City for the hour record (51,151 km) and in the foray from Soave to the Verona Arena, where he crowned himself the new Radames of cycling, overcoming, as mentioned, the Frenchman with a bachelor's degree, Fignon.
And, in the bigger picture, everyone is ready to wait for Carl Lewis, predicted to win four gold medals – 100, 200, 4x100 meters and long jump – Jesse Owens-style.
Well… Aronne Anghileri has to contend with the swimmers, especially since Manuela Dalla Valle could do something good, despite no longer being in the Novella Calligaris era and not yet in that of Federica Pellegrini. Elio Trifari sees Daniele Masala as a good candidate in the pentathlon. Enrico Campana has Italy's challenging basketball group to contend with, while in the other bracket, the USA Dream Team is on its way to absolute domination at the expense of Spain. And so on.
Is there a volunteer for... fencing? Here he is. International driving license. Rental car. Motorola Text on his belt. And off to the Long Beach Convention Center, just steps from the ferry dock for Catalina Island.
We were full-fledged debutants at the Olympics after our fleeting appearance in Canara, in Montreal 1976, and in front of us was another debutant with a very small title, who in the Games with the Italian protagonists with short surnames (Cova, Dorio, Marin, Scuri, Scalzo, Meglio, Ferri, Manzo, Cuomo, etc. etc.) was that Mauro Numa who put two gold medals in foil around his neck: individual and team.
Numa arrives from Venice. He would have delighted the most meticulous of Gazzetta reporters, Aronne Anghileri, who, from Lecco, had gone to comb Como's Dalla Valle. Instead, he delighted us... including myself, who, as a curious reporter, enjoyed the first non-cycling medals of my journalistic career at the Olympics in the first of two weeks in California. These weeks would later allow me to experience firsthand – among others – the wheelies of Lewis, the miraculous jumper Sara Simeoni, and that Alberto Cova, whom we often spotted training on the back roads of Brianza from Mariano Comense to Lentate Sul Seveso and back.
In short, from the "award-winning firm" Xuereb & Palazzo Bloise came an adrenaline rush that, 41 years later, brought us back to Los Angeles in those first "widespread Games" invented by Peter Uberroth: the surface area covered by the venues (the places of the challenges) was similar to the Milan-Turin-Genoa triangle and extended as far as Ventura for some races on the water.
We see the bolt from the blue thrown by Mauro Numa arrive every now and then, so much so that we're starting to seriously consider a trip to Los Angeles in 2028 to meet—who knows?—the sweet-eyed Dorina Vaccaroni, a Venetian like Numa, who in 1984 bolstered the Italian fencing haul with a bronze in foil, bringing the total number of medals collected by Italian fencing teams to nine (5 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze). Now, as a vegan and a Buddhist (though the two aren't necessarily connected), she experiences intense emotions astride the racing bike she's fallen in love with and with which she pedals far and wide across the United States of America. From the high society salons and the Venice Carnival to the endless American road races, Dorina's assault must have been no small fencing effort.
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