“I have always experienced sport with a spirit of curiosity and with the pleasure of running. Today for me is a dive into the past, it means returning to a beautiful moment, full of enthusiasm and smiles. A sport in which the best won and the others applauded him. I wish the Italian sprinters all the best for the European Championships in Rome 2024.” Livio Berruti, Olympic champion of the 200 meters in Rome 1960, said this when he met the Italian relay runners this morning on the first day of the meeting at the Stadio dei Marmi named after Pietro Mennea. A special surprise for the athletes of the national team, excited and honored to meet in person one of the legends of Italian athletics, whose victory over sixty years ago at the Olympic Stadium has remained imprinted in the memory not only of sports but of the entire Italian culture .
The occasion was the presence of Livio Berruti in Rome to receive the Bearzot Lifetime Achievement Award, in the ceremony promoted by the Acli Sports Union together with the FIGC in the CONI Hall of Honour. Berruti greeted the Italian 4×100 relay runners one by one, from the Olympic champion Lorenzo Patta to the European 60 champion Samuele Ceccarelli, from the world 60 hurdles silver medalist Lorenzo Simonelli to the emerging Marco Ricci and Matteo Melluzzo, accompanied by the head of speed Filippo Di Mulo and by collaborator Giorgio Frinolli.
For the first time the Azzurri were able to become familiar with the new Stadio dei Marmi, completely redeveloped by Sport e Salute, which will be one of the warm-up areas for athletes during the Rome 2024 European Athletics Championships starting in just over fifty days. At the Olympic Stadium and the Foro Italico Park the European champions will compete for six consecutive days in eleven overall sessions of competitions from Friday 7 June to Wednesday 12 June.