On Sunday at the Palazzetto dello Sport in Cuneo the Prosecco Doc Imoco Conegliano will be able to enter the history of volleyball in which it already exists. But if he will beat Bosca San Bernardo in the match scheduled at 5pm – in a building that promises to be crowded at the limit of the capacity allowed by anti-Covid regulations: 2800 spectators – will officially be a Guinness World Record team, because it will exceed the record of 72 consecutive games won at national level by Teodora Ravenna, mythical team of the equally legendary and late coach Sergio Guerra which, with the historic founder Alfa Garavini – forerunner of women managers in sport – as president, remained undefeated from 15 March 1985 to 8 December 1987, then winning 11 league titles in a row (a goal that still stands unattended) from 1980-’81 to 1990 -’91.
Sergio Guerra, late coach of Teodora Ravenna, the team that still holds the record of 11 consecutive league titles won from the 1980-’81 to 1990-’91 season (FEDERVOLLEY ARCHIVE)
But there is more. On Sunday 14 November the Conegliano squadron, in which the European champion of the Italian national team Paola Egonu stands out, in the event of a success in Cuneo, would raise the record to 73 consecutive games won, equaling the world one of the Turkish team VakifBank Istanbul. The Veneto team of coach Daniele Santarelli equaled Ravenna (72) last Wednesday, overcoming Chieri 3-0, the same team against which, on Sunday 15 December 2019, they began (without knowing it) the climb to the Guinness Book.
A celebration of Conegliano (PHOTO LEGA VOLLEY)
Three days earlier, on 12 December 2019, they had known the sporting shame of being defeated by Perugia, last in the standings, by 3-2 albeit with considerable extenuating circumstances: the absence of the strongest players, including Egonu, and above all being veterans of the triumph in the Club World Cup in China (the girls from Conegliano had just returned from the long journey to the East) canceling 9 match-points in the semifinals at the same VakifBank, beaten for 23-21 at the tie-break.
VakifBank from Istanbul, a Turkish team that has won 73 consecutive games around the world
Since that December 15 two years ago, they have never stopped. Always victorious. To the delight of the presidency tandem formed by Piero Garbellotto (entrepreneur of wine barrels) and Pietro Maschio (entrepreneur of the eponymous brand of bubbles). In 2019, the Conegliano volleyball sports club had 180 commercial partners (from 3,000 to 300,000 euros) for a budget of over 3.5 million, as Garbellotto declared in “La Stampa” to Roberto Condio.
In Cuneo Imoco Conegliano will be able to set the world record. Thinking already of the possible overtaking, the following Sunday, November 22, when a victory over Trento would give the Veneto the absolute world record in the solitude of consecutive victories in women’s volleyball, currently held by the VakifBank of Istanbul who with the current (Italian) coach Giovanni Guidetti between October 2012 and January 2014 won 73 matches in a row. It would be another Guinness venture, alongside the Turkish sports club, another “queen” of world club volleyball.