Testimonial
Bianca Del Carretto, official testimonial for "Legnano 2012" European Fencing Championships, is really familiar with the city of Legnano, where she has been living with her boyfriend and training in the last three years. She's a great Epée champion and, for all of these reasons, the Italian athlete from Rapallo (Genova) has been chosen to represent the last important fencing appointment before Olympic Games in London.
The Epéeist, born on August, 28th 1985 and member of Italian Aereonautica Militare, won a team Gold medal during the World Championships in Antaly 2009 together with her team mates Cristiana Cascioli, Nathalie Moellhausen and Francesca Quondamcarlo. It was the first, historical World title for the Italian Women Epée team after the inividual Gold of Laura Chiesa at "Athens 1994". Bianca is smart, modest and kind.
Bianca will lead us in the countdown to Legnano's event telling us about her training and thoughts, emotions, feelings and World Cup results.
What kind of emotions do you experience with Fencing? “Winning an Epée assault is really, really difficult. Epée is probabily the most complete discipline in Fencing: it gives anyone a chance, but at the same time it's just an exploit winning the first time and more difficult winning again and being at the top for years… An Epée assault is a sort of “sport battle”; you can be in trouble with everyone: this is the beauty of this weapon!”, Del Carretto answered.
Our heroin comes from Rapallo (Genova), where she began to fence in 1991, at the age of six. The “legend” told that one day, in her school, a fencing teacher magically appeared to show children the discipline. Bianca was immediately captured and started with Foil, as common for kids, even if she actually didn’t like it: “I wasn’t really good at fence with Foil – Bianca admits today, smiling – and to tell the truth I didn’t like it, but I went on for some years because I had a lot of friends there (ndr, Club Scherma Rapallo, the fencing club she attended)”.
In 1995 the turning point: Club Scherma Rapallo hosted a new fencing teacher, Roberto, who conquered Bianca with few words: “I’d like to test you on Epée”. Bianca tried it (at that time she was 10 years old) and never gave up. Today she’s 26 years old and one of the greatest Italian and international Epéeist with a rich palmarès, at least in team competitions; but she will probably win again, because just right now she seems to have reached her complete maturity as fencer.
Del Carretto also has different passions: she likes reading Japanese novels but also Italian authors such as Pirandello, using her pc and many other technical devices.
What does it mean for you competing in your “second home town”, Legnano? “It will be a strong emotion for many reasons, no doubt about it. – Bianca said - It’s beautiful to live such an important tournament closed to home. There will be a lot of people cheering me and it will be fantastic. However, at the same time, competing at home also means more and more pressure.”
Bianca made her debut in the National Italian team in 2001: at the moment, she has won a Silver medal (individual) and Bronze medal (team) in Junior World Championships. She attended her first Senior World Championships in 2003, at L’Havana (Cuba); it was probably the city of destiny as eight years later, on May,23 2011, she won there her first World Cup stage, after four podiums and two defeats in the final steps of the competitions. In the last few years she also got one victory in a stage of Junior World Cup, in Burgos; four team medals (with the Gold in Gand 2007) and one individual (Bronze, at Kiev 2008) at the European Championships; the team Gold of "Antalya 2009" and the most recent team Bronze medal in the World Championships of "Catania 2011". Catania was really an unlucky occasion for her individual career: she didn't manage to reach the podium for a technical mistake in refereeing system which made her loose against Ana Maria Branza (who got the Bronze, in the end).
Anyway, we are sure Bianca has much more to say and, especially, to win.
