Naples, July 9th – In front of a warm audience, Campanian shooters Dario Di Martino (from Naples) and Maria Varricchio (from the province of Benevento) have won a historical bronze medal for the Shooting Italian National team.
Chinese Taipei placed second on the podium, whereas South Korea won the gold medal.
After rejoicing with their supporters, who came all the way just for them, the two athletes from Campania start talking to our microphones.
We ask them how important it is to participate in an event like the Universiade, in their homeland no less, especially for those taking the first steps in the sports world in Campania:
Maria Varricchio – “Competing at home is surely no easy feat, everyone has great expectations. However, once we were in the final we started feeling the audience’s warmth, it was simply amazing”.
Dario Di Martino – “It was a fantastic esperience for me, since I am from Naples: all my friends were standing right behind me today and it felt like being at the stadium during a football match. I never competed in front of so many people, it was incredible. I was here to win a medal and I am extremely happy after achieving this goal”.
A question we just had to ask was how they first approached this sport: for both of them, the passion for shooting had been passed down from their parents, who would often bring them to the gun range. Contrary to our expectations, before coming into contact with shooting sports, Varricchio used to be a ballet dancer when she was younger. After this medal we hope to see them again at the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympics: there are very high hopes for them and they promise to do their best in order to be there, even though it will certainly not be an easy task.
