The little town of Campitello di Fassa in the Italian Dolomites will be hosting the IFSC European Climbing Championship in less than a month time. And in the past few days the Italian National Team tested the ADEL wall where Europe’s best climbers will be competing one against the other from 29 June to 1 July.
The Italian coach Luca Giupponi and all the athletes enjoyed the four days spent in Trentino region. Stefano Ghisolfi, Francesco Vettorata, Marcello Bombardi, Alberto Gotta, Michael Piccolruaz, Alessandro Zeni, Andrea Ebner, Claudia Ghisolfi, Silvia Cassol and Laura Rogora looked very enthusiastic and seemed quite confident on the wall.
‘We’ve tested the wall with the Lead male and female teams – claimed coach Giupponi – and we will come back here next week for three more training days. The whole venue is fantastic, one of the best we have in the country, the wall is vertical as it has to be, demanding and super tough. In addition, the area in the mountains looks simply stunning and the organisers are very well prepared.’
Stefano Ghisolfi is certainly one of Italy’s most powerful athlete, Italy’s best climber in the Lead World Cup. ‘I feel quite well, I had pretty good results in recent time and that’s why I am quite confident about reaching the finals in this championship. I’ll try to get a medal, that’s guaranteed, even though being at home, in front of my crowd, it might become more stressful, but also exciting at the same time I guess.’
Stefano’s sister, Claudia is also part of the team. ‘At the very beginning I was quite worried, in Turin where I live the weather was already very hot and all the trainings were very hard. Here is Val di Fassa it is totally different and despite the fact I’m not in a great physical shape at the moment, I’m very focused and I did enjoy this time here with the rest of the squad. I’ll be at my best when it really matters, when the European Champ will kick off. My brother is very motivating, unfortunately we don’t live together anymore, he recently moved to Arco and now I miss him a lot especially when I feel a little down’.
Laura Rogora is 16 years old and she certainly is a rising star. ‘My dad was a climber and when I was 4 or 5 he brought me and my sister to the rocks, to climb together with him. The European Climbing Championship is my very first senior tournament and I have no idea what to expect, I just want to do my best and I’m preparing myself physically and mentally for it.’
‘My dream is to enter the first 15 in the competition standings – said Alberto Gotta – we now know the wall, we competed here during the National Cup. I think Austrians, Slovenians and the French team are the toughest competitors, plus Italy of course!’
‘We built up the commitee in order to offer an high-level event – claimed Lorenza Dellantonio, member of the Val di Fassa Climbing OC – we still have some good work to do, but we’ll be ready for the Championship, that’s for sure.’
