“Friends of the great Italian Paralympic family,
we are about to end a year that we cannot help but define as extraordinary, starting, not least, from the memory of the result of Paris 2024. What, in the prelude, might have seemed like a very difficult Paralympics, also because the bar, after Tokyo, had been placed very high, it actually proved to be a wonderful Paralympics on the field. The credit can be attributed, first and foremost, to the athletes, their coaches, the basic sports clubs or military bodies to which they are members but also to their families, because behind a great athlete there is always a great family.
142 qualified athletes, the largest delegation ever, numbers that demonstrate that we had already approached Paris with an important result. 53 debutants, marking a movement that thinks not only of consolidating the present and strengthening the past but which at the same time is projected onto the future. We ended Paris with 71 medals, two more than in Tokyo but above all with the incredible result of 6th place in the medal table. It had never happened, either in terms of number of medals or position in the medal table, with the exception of the first two editions of the Paralympic Games, those of 1960 and 1964, two editions that were not comparable in terms of the number of athletes and participating nations.
This is a result that I couldn’t help but start from but it is not the only result, even if it represents the tip of the iceberg, the one that allows us to keep the spotlight on our movement and our Paralympic family.
It is with these results, in fact, that we managed to penetrate the homes of Italians, thanks to the support of Rai, which wanted to dedicate Rai 2 as a Paralympic network, with live broadcasts that allowed us to make our people more and more known. athletes, their stories and to activate that contamination necessary to get to the most beautiful medal, that of being able to give rise to curiosity and hope that many disabled children can approach our movement thanks to the example of our champions. The year is extraordinary for the results but also because our movement never leaves anyone behind.
So on the one hand the result and, at the same time, continuing to sow with the start-up campuses for disabled boys and girls in the country, both for summer sports and winter sports; then continue with that extraordinary work in the world of schools, with the Ministry of Education and Merit, with the university world, with that of rehabilitation, of spinal unit or prosthesis centers together with INAIL.
It is therefore a complete, vast, very widespread and demanding action, which however is bearing fruit.
Today you must interpret the Italian Paralympic Committee, which I like to define as more than an organization, as a real agent of social change. It is known, it has attracted people’s attention and all together we are bringing about that silent cultural revolution in the country.
We must not feel like we are a world apart but a part of the world and we must always think of those tens of thousands of people, even with very serious disabilities, who may never be able to play sports. We must be spotlights capable of turning on and keeping attention high on those daily Paralympics that so many of our children have to face every day and for their entire lives.
As long as I’m there, I like to cultivate the sense of belonging to a whole community, which together is producing what it is producing and which is never the result of a single man in command.
For this reason I tend to thank all those men and women who silently, without appearing, continue to work and believe in what we do, starting from the territory, from the sports clubs that continue to raise the shutters of their sports group or of its facilities on the hopes of many young people, cultivating the idea of the right to sport which must belong to everyone.
A right to sport whose declination must be perceived but, at the same time, truly accessible to all in terms of access and welcome. It is not enough to think and declaim the need to have sports infrastructures without architectural barriers.
There needs to be technicians in those infrastructures trained to accept the legitimate request for respect for the right to sport of any citizen. Here, the Paralympic world is all of this and you are part of it and must continue to be part of it with sensitivity and a sense of responsibility, because we can truly represent that overwhelming force which, with our contribution, can make this country more fair and supportive.
With this brief reflection I want to say goodbye to you, I want to say goodbye to the year that is ending and wish you all the best that 2025 can bring you, thinking of health, serenity and always reminding us to always look back at those who are worse off than us . Our task is to interpret the hopes and dreams of those who will not be able to realize them.
This too is the Paralympic world, which rejoices in the great results but tries every day not to leave anyone behind. I know that there is still a lot to do, I know that we will still have to put a lot of effort into our daily work and we will continue to do so thanks to the federations, sports promotion bodies, the employees of the Italian Paralympic Committee here in Rome and around the territory.
The important thing is that no one feels excluded from emotional, ideal and, in the noblest sense, political participation in the development of a movement that can impact the progress of this country”.
#extraordinary #year #budget #words #CIP #President #Pancalli
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