July Marano and Vittore Simone Borromini will be the Italian flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the European Youth Olympic Festival in Banská Bystrica, scheduled to take place tomorrow at 8.30 p.m. in the park next to the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising.
Marano, a 2008 athlete from the Civitavecchia Gymnastics team and this year already competing among the juniors at the City of Jesolo Trophy, is the youngest member of the Italian delegation and will have the task of leading the Italia Team parade together with Borromini, the Atletica Cascina athlete, competing at the EYOF over the 3000m distance. The double flag-bearer had already made his youth-level debut at the winter edition of the EYOF, hosted last March in Vuokatti, Finland.

The Italian team, made up of a total of 96 Azzurrini (49 girls and 47 boys), left Fiumicino Airport this morning for the Slovakian city where, with the first competitions on 25 July, they will compete against over 2300 athletes aged between 14 and 18 from 48 European nations. Ten disciplines will be competing, with Badminton featuring for the first time in the programme of a summer EYOF. Italy will not be present in the Basketball and Handball competitions. The previous edition was held in Baku in the summer of 2019 and brought Italy 26 medals, including eight gold, nine silver and nine bronze medals.

The competitions of the Azzurrini of the Italia Team and the opening and closing ceremonies will be broadcast for the first time in history and, exclusively for Italy, on ItaliaTeamTv (see schedule), CONI's OTT platform that has garnered consensus by recounting the successes of the Azzurri at the recent Mediterranean Games in Oran 2022.