TOKYO – ‘Azzurri’ athletes have won a record breaking 40 medals for Italy, including 10 golds, more than traditional European sports powerhouses Germany and France, and even more than the 36 Italy had previously won at Los Angeles 1936 and at their home Olympics in Rome in 1960, their previous best mark.
Italians matched their 28 medals from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2012 London Games after only 10 days of Tokyo’s Games, adding to the country’s glorious sporting summer following their European soccer championship win in July.
“These were the greatest Olympics ever for Italy,” Italian Olympic Committee President Giovanni Malago’, whose country will host the 2032 winter Olympics, said.
Tamberi was locked out of training for just two weeks in the last year and a half, and he lit up Tokyo’s Olympic stadium last week on a night that saw Italy dazzle in athletics with sprinter Lamont Marcell Jacobs capturing the blue riband men’s 100 meters title.
Jacobs went one better a few days later, snatching the 4×100 meters relay gold for a superb double in the post-Usain Bolt era of athletics.
From cycling and sailing to fencing and karate, Italy’s gold medals came pouring in while overall the nation podiums in 16 of the 33 sports. There was no single day at the Games without at least one Italian medal in an unprecedented run for the country.
Signs of Italy’s strength were evident even before the Games when a record 384 athletes earned a qualifying spot for Tokyo. Their previous best was 367 from the Athens Games in 2004.
For all Azzurri athletes winning medals, apart from national glory, there is also the prize money that now awaits them, with gold fetching 180,000 euros, almost three times that of French Olympic champions and eight times more than what the German gold winners get.
