A piece of history destroyed. A sporting ‘temple’ loved by the people of Faenza and beyond, ruined by the terrible flood of 2-3 May. A place that has seen the growth of great champions and that accompanies dozens of young sportsmen every year, where everything has been lost. The situation in the Lucchesi gym in Faenza, home of Greco-Roman wrestling and of the Faenza Athletic Club, which celebrated its centenary in 2019, is truly dramatic. Carpets, weight room, equipment, documents; the tide of mud dragged by the flooding of the Lamone spared nothing. And this is why a fundraiser has been launched for the gym, as well as for other local realities, on the GoFundMe online platform. A crowdfunding that in a few days has raised a few thousand euros, but which are still too few to restore everything that the bad weather has cancelled.
To give us an overview of the situation is Olimpia Randi, vice president of the Fijlkam regional committee for the Wrestling sector, who manages the Faenza gym together with Gianni Morsiani. “The water took everything away from us – she says heartbroken – all the machines in the weight room are now outside the gym, the electronic ones are destroyed, everything needed for the competitions we organize is ruined, we threw away the mats we used for wrestling matches”. Furthermore, there was a wellness center in the gym, also irreparably ruined, due to the sea of water and mud that arrived with such power as to even move the sauna by 20 centimetres. Also lost is the ‘history’ of the Faenza struggle. In fact, the flooding has not spared the papers of the Fijlkam regional committee, and even the computers in the structure are irrecoverable.
A disaster that unfolded before the eyes of the gym managers when they were given permission to approach the venue, while a wrestling competition was supposed to take place there the following weekend. “We found the glass at the entrance broken, there was furniture overturned on top of each other, even a plant had entered and there were mud and stones everywhere”, Randi continues. A life’s work going down the drain. In a gym that over the years has seen the growth and work of Greco-Roman wrestling athletes of the caliber of Vincenzo Maenza, three Olympic medals (two gold and one silver) and Andrea Minguzzi (Olympic gold in Beijing 2008). “Let’s at least try to save the photographic exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Club Atletico Faenza – adds Randi – I am destroyed, morally and physically”.
An initial estimate of the damage to the gym has been made and it seems that hundreds of thousands of euros are needed to renovate the devastated structure. As the manager of the gym explains, the damage “is huge. Inside there is nothing left, it’s all empty”. It is also difficult to determine when it will be possible to see the structure refurbished once the funds have been raised. “I want to be optimistic. With the simplest things, the minimum necessary to allow the younger ones to train, I hope that in September we will be able to do it. Of course, we will have to wait for the sports field to dry out, let’s hope that summer will give us a hand We also hope to do the Cre in August. Then we will need the new mat for the wrestling matches”. In the meantime, the activity of the Faenza wrestlers will not stop: in the coming weeks they will be hosted in the gym of Atletica 85, a Faenza athletics club. And Randi is already looking ahead: “I would like the boys to be able to compete in the under 15 championships on May 27-28 in Ostia”.
Fortunately there was no lack of collaboration, to try to remedy the disaster. “Saturday and Sunday there were a lot of us working here in the gym. There were many young volunteers from Faenza and the Civil Protection to give us a hand”. The collaboration has also gone beyond the borders of Faenza. In fact, help also came from the ‘cousins’ of the Ravenna Port Workers’ wrestling gym, but “other companies from outside the region have also offered us their collaboration”, Randi specifies. A sign of great solidarity to try all together to get back on their feet.