Anticipation is growing for the weekend of 6-7 December where the finals of the women’s and men’s Sitting Volleyball Italian Cup will take place in Siderno, at the “Eunice Kennedy Shriver” sports hall.
The event was presented through a special press conference in the council chamber of the Municipality of Siderno. An institutional synergy between entities to ensure that it can be a weekend dedicated to sport and inclusion in a land, Locride, and in an important town like Siderno, increasingly central in the regional sports and volleyball panorama. The press conference was moderated by the journalist Gianluca Albanese, member of the mayor Mariateresa Fragomeni’s staff. The mayor himself, the president of Fipav Calabria, Carmelo Sestito, the president of Fipav Reggio Calabria, Domenico Panuccio, the CONI trustee for Locride, Salvatore Papa, the municipal councilor with responsibility for sporting events, Davide Lurasco, spoke.
Mariateresa Fragomeni, mayor of Siderno: “For me it is an honor to present this great event of sport and social inclusion. Once again Siderno and Locride have the pleasure of hosting such an important event which seals the profitable synergy between institutions and the relationship with Fipav Calabria and the Territorial Committee of Reggio Calabria. Our hall is named after the founder of Special Olympics in the world and this demonstrates the attention that our city has wanted to give to sport and inclusion. In this sense the Italian Sitting Volleyball finals represent an important moment for our territory also with regards to tourist flows and the deseasonalization of the sector. For this I want to thank the regional councilor for Tourism Giovanni Calabrese because this is the result of a synergy that goes beyond the so-called political barriers when it comes to doing the good of our territory 6 and 7 December”.
Carmelo Sestito, president of Fipav Calabria: “Thanks to the municipal administration and the community of Siderno for once again hosting such important initiatives by making the sports hall available to Fipav. Organizing two Italian Cup finals at the same time is very rare in Italy and we immediately identified Siderno because we knew the organization and hospitality of the city. We thank the Calabria Region and the Tourism Councilor Giovanni Calabrese for being in Siderno on 6-7 December a project begins that will continue in the months of January, February, March and April and which will take place in the schools of our region where we will talk about social inclusion, sport and sitting volleyball. The project will end in the first days of May at the Pala Calafiore in Reggio Calabria where we will have the pleasure and honor of hosting national women’s teams that rarely come to Italy: USA, China, Brazil and our national team in which our Calabrian and Reggio Calabrian athlete, Raffaela, has played for many years. Battaglia. Our thoughts turn to the many disabled people: a few years ago in Vibo we organized the men’s Italian Cup final and our success was not related to the competitive part, but was to see people, living in difficult situations and social contexts, participate with passion in that event”
Domenico Panuccio, president of the Fipav Reggio Calabria territorial committee: “Thanks to the mayor Mariateresa Fragomeni because once again Siderno welcomes the Italian Volleyball Federation, once again opens the doors of the building to host in this case a national sitting volleyball event. It is a very particular discipline, still little known. Through these events we have the possibility of making people understand that volleyball is not just about winning the World Cup or the Olympics, but that there is a volleyball “different” where the athletes make really big leaps to be able to play at a technical level because they play while sitting. I would like to invite all the clubs from the metropolitan city, but above all from Ionica because they will be able to attend a great event”.