Mecenate dello Sport 2024 to Julio Velasco: “A huge honor to me”

Julio Velasco received the international “Mecenate dello Sport” award in Rome, from the hands of the president of CONI Giovanni Malagò, and from Giovanni Di Pietro, president of the Varaldo Di Pietro Foundation, which promoted the award with the patronage of CONI and the National Order of Journalists.

In the Hall of Honor of CONI in Rome, the ceremony presented by the journalist and sports manager Matteo Marani, saw the eleventh edition of the award assigned to the coach of the Italian women’s national volleyball team, gold medalist at the Paris Olympics with an exceptional sporting palmares.

“Thank you for this important award because it concerns the values of sport – said Julio Velasco, who then announced the continuation of his relationship with the national team: “I still feel the tiger’s eyes, I will arrive in Los Angeles 2028. We agree with President Manfredi, we are already talking about it. After the Olympics I reflected a lot, I still have the hunger necessary to lead the national team again”.

In awarding the prize, President Giovanni Di Pietro said: “This recognition goes to an extraordinary man of sport who is also a life teacher who with his teachings has made Italian sport great, always in the name of the great values of sport. For us it is an honor to be able to have him in our roll of honor, an exceptional witness of our time, just as it is important for us to have awarded a special recognition to President Giovanni Malagò for the successes of Italian sport and for his fundamental contribution as a great sports manager. With Velasco a beautiful sporting fairytale is fulfilled with Italy at its center and a symbol of world sport like Velasco, a philosopher of volleyball who combines great technical skills with human qualities and great cultural depth”.

The President of CONI, Giovanni Malagò, received a special award for the best Olympics ever for Italian sport, the one in Paris. Among the other guests present, athletes and sports managers, including the president of the Italian Volleyball Federation, Giuseppe Manfredi, Manuela Olivieri Mennea, president of the Pietro Mennea Foundation, one of the symbolic players of Italian volleyball such as Manuela Benelli, but also players and managers of Roma Volley and Cisterna Volley of A1 and Giò Volley Aprilia of B1.

Julio Velasco succeeds in the roll of honor of the “Mecenate dello Sport” to other important personalities such as: Massimo Moratti, Nerio Alessandri, Claudio Ranieri, Timothy Shriver Kennedy, Lavinia Biagiotti, Javier Zanetti, Piero Ferrari, Bebe Vio and the Pietro Mennea Foundation

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