The adventure of the Italy men’s sword team at the Olympics ended in the quarter-finals. The Azzurri were defeated by Russia, officially ROC at the Games, in a match marked by very questionable refereeing. At the end of the match Marco Fichera, one of the three Italian fencers, spoke about the referee direction: “We are serving a crazy referee. We have not been able to manage the nervousness generated by some referee decisions “.
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Another disappointment for Italian fencing. But unlike the last few days in which three medals arrived in team competitions – silver in the men’s saber and bronze in the sword and women’s foil – this time the elimination in the quarter-finals for Italy in the team sword came. male. But at the end of the race there was no lack of controversy, which was enormous and the tones used were furious.
Italy had started well after the fifth assault, the Azzurri were ahead, albeit by three points, then the situation worsened and Russia, which officially is at the Games as ROC, won 45-37. A rather clear dominance also the result of an arbitrage that was not appreciated by the Italian fencers. Marco Fichera, one of the three on the platform, at the end of the match, was very hard saying: “Today we can only lick our wounds. We discount crazy arbitrage, but you have to know how to win even in these situations. We take criticism and responsibility, the pats on the face are good. But, even if we are losers, we will not tolerate other accusations against our professionalism: this will no longer be tolerable “.
Very precise words those of Fichera, on the platform with Santarelli and Garozzo. The Sicilian athlete protested that the refereeing was not up to par. The Russians have been the authors of some provocations that have sent the Azzurri into a tailspin, then furious at a series of wrong referee decisions: “We have not been able to manage the nervousness generated by some questionable referee decisions that have arisen. We have put our heart into it. but unfortunately it didn’t go as we wanted “.
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But at the same time the fencer born in 1993 gave a strong thrust to those who, who remained out of the blue expedition and those who left the activity, who are heavily criticizing the men’s and women’s teams, who have collected many medals, but none of gold , at least so far.