The waters of San Teodoro will host the "Open Water" Paralympic World Swimming Championship , with athletes arriving from fifteen different nations to battle it out among the panoramas of the eastern coast of Sardinia, which attracts thousands of tourists every year.
The competitions will start on Saturday 23 September , but first a series of promotional events are scheduled, also due to the next Paralympic Games, which the discipline hopes to enter. Then we set off, with a 1.5 km rectangular route initially reserved for classes S3 to S6. An hour later it will be the turn of the classes from S7 to S10 and from S11 to S14, who will compete in a 3 km circuit.
There is great emotion in the organisation: «The basic principle is to help the Paralympic swimming movement to increasingly emancipate itself» , explains the regional Finp delegate Silvia Fioravanti, «meeting the needs of the athletes and putting them in a position to improve, both sportingly and humanly through a constant and equal relationship."
And in this Sardinia already boasts an important tradition: «I believe that the secret of ten years of Italian Championships in Sardinia lies in these concepts», concludes Fioravanti, «and then, another fundamental element is the gratitude to be given democratically between all the components organisations, including institutions, because they have understood the value of our message which aims to attract enthusiasts from all over the world to form a large family in which we can help each other in major events and in daily life".
A scenario, that of the island, which also finds the approval of the president of Finp Valori: «It is a great satisfaction for me and for the movement I represent», he explains, «to host the first World Cup at an international level in paralympic swimming in open water. Everything will take place in the wonderful setting of San Teodoro at the same time as the Italian Open Water Championship."
(Unioneonline/L.Ne.)
