Massimo Spinella, 24 years old from Reggio Calabria, is the sixth Italian athlete at the Paris Olympics in the men’s 25m automatic pistol event. In this contest Italy will also be able to field Riccardo Mazzetticontinental silver at the last European Championships held in Osijek.
The news of the Olympic pass followed the Munich leg of the Shooting World Cup, the last international event before the Olympics. The ISSF made official Massimo Spinella’s qualification through the reallocation of the Olympic quota from the organizing nation (France).
Spinella won the World Cup race in Cairo in 2023 and obtained third place in Baku in 2022, adding to these results also the prestigious participation in the 2023 World Cup Finals, finishing in 11th place.
«I’m very happy – says Massimo Spinella -, the qualification I’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. In Monaco, during the last stage of the World Cup, everything was strange: at the end of the race I didn’t know whether to rejoice or not, also because the arrival of the Olympic card wasn’t official yet and in those moments you fear that something might go wrong crooked. The qualification didn’t come with a medal, a podium or a title, but I’m still happy: because it made me and everyone understand how much perseverance it took to get to this point.”
