A first contingent of Italy’s Paralympic fencing team is set to depart from Rome’s Fiumicino airport, via Dubai, for the 2025 World Championships in Iksan, South Korea, scheduled for September 2-7. Bebe Vio Grandis, who will join the team in the coming days, is serving as the delegation head, ready to represent Italy this time not on the piste, but as a team leader.
The team is a mix of youth and experience. With 13 athletes competing, the squad will inaugurate a new four-year journey in Iksan, the road that will lead to the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games. For some, this will be their first World Championship.
Following a final group training session in L’Aquila, the first eight athletes to depart are: Mattia Galvagno, Sofia Garnero, Edoardo Giordan, Andrea Jacquier, Julia Markowska, Gianmarco Paolucci, Luca Platania, and Loredana Trigilia. They are led by technical commissioners Alessandro Paroli (foil), Antongiulio Stella (sabre), and Michele Tarantini (épée). They will later be joined by Matteo Betti, Andreea Mogos, Emanuele Lambertini, Leonardo Rigo, and Michele Massa.
After five editions—from Budapest 2013 to Terni 2023, through Eger 2015, Rome 2017, and Cheongju 2019—this will be the first World Championship for Italian wheelchair fencing without Bebe Vio competing. “It is the most important competition after the Paralympics,” explained the multi-medaled fencer from Fiumicino, Edoardo Giordan (Category A – men’s individual and team sabre, men’s individual and team épée), before boarding. “We have many ambitions and expectations: it is a group formed by experienced athletes and young ones, some of whom are debutants, and we hope to bring home as many medals as possible. We have trained well; we essentially spent the entire summer in the gym to be ready for this event, for which we do this and more. My expectations are very high: I am coming from positive post-Paralympic results and the goal is to win at least one laurel; I am ready, and the others will have to prove they are stronger.”
On Bebe Vio’s role as head of delegation, Giordan added: “She will be off the piste for now and will be ready to support us, to cheer us on: it is a great emotion for her too and she never misses an opportunity to be with the group. And then she will come back even stronger, I am sure of it.”