The goal was to reach the quarter-finals, a dream rather than a concrete hope. And instead coach Stefano Lavarini, a Piedmontese from Lake Orta, went further. She led South Korea to the Tokyo Olympics semifinals in women’s volleyball. Starting as an underdog in the night he beat Turkey 3-2 at the tie break: 17-25, 25-17, 28-26, 18-25, 15-13 the sets in favor of the Koreans in a match that lasted over two hours.
He beat Giovanni Guidetti, the other Italian coach on the Turkey bench. The student who surpasses the teacher, since Guidetti at the time when Lavarini worked with the youth teams in Chieri was at the helm of the first team and helped him grow. In Turkey 7 points for Karakurt, Lavarini’s future player at Igor Novara.
Cusiano della Valle Strona, Lavarini’s success is the victory of those who never give up, the stubbornness typical of mountain people. A result that on the eve it was difficult to predict given that in recent months for disciplinary reasons Korea had lost two of its most representative players, the Yeong twins.
Starting as an assistant in the Omegna where blue futures like Paola Cardullo and Eleonora Lo Bianco played, he wandered between La Spezia, Chieri, Bergamo also coaching in Brazil where he won the South American championship and Champions with Minas. Back in Italy in Busto Arisizio, he is now a column of Igor Novara. Lavarini lived through the ranks, the real one, he slept in gyms around Italy to be the first in training to discover the secrets of the great volleyball coaches. «I built my career from scratch, I’ve made many sacrifices. But you don’t always get it on the basis of what you give, ”he recalled. Tokyo is giving him what he deserves instead.