Larissa Iapichino looks forward to Golden Gala in Florence

The words of Larissa Iapichino

“This is a huge thrill. To be able to compete on my home field is not something that happens every day. I look forward to nothing more than being able to express myself in front of the Florentine and Italian public.” Larissa Iapichino will shine among the stars of the Pietro Mennea Golden Gala in ‘her’ Florence.

The 20-year-old Italian athlete of the Fiamme Gialle, a wonderful silver medalist at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, is the protagonist at a press conference in the Tuscan capital, in the Sala Pegaso of Palazzo Strozzi Sacrati, at the launch of the Golden Gala on June 2. Twenty-four months after the last Florentine edition, a different Larissa will be seen again on the Ridolfi platform: “In these two years I had to fight against myself and I came out of it very well,” she says, “it was a journey at times difficult but exciting, a path that made me grow a lot. And to find myself here competing against these girls is a great incentive and honor, I can’t wait to put myself on the line with such high level opponents. Some of them I have the pleasure of being able to call friends….” She will be jumping with Mihambo, Vuleta, Sawyers, Brume, Bekh-Romanchuk (full cast here), in short all the best in the world around, a substantial preview of the rainbow event in Budapest. Two outings await her before the Golden Gala, one on sprint and another on long: “I will make my debut on May 13 or 14 in a sprint race over a distance to be defined, either the 100 or the 200 meters, at the Arezzo Company Championships. And then the first race in the long will be on May 24 in Kallithea, near Athens, and it will be a good test before Florence.”