A year of lights and shadows for the blue colors in 2015. The great triumphs come above all from individual sports with two extraordinary high points in swimming and tennis. ??
Let's start by disappointment largest for team sports, namely that of theItalbasket at the European Championships. The Azzurri go out in the quarter-finals at the hands of Lithuania, then a finalist in this competition. The national team coached by coach Pianigiani has disappointed above all for the great potential of the squad which sees four NBA stars (now three after Datome's move to Turkey) and the talents of Gentile and Hackett. A too discontinuous national team, which loses against Turkey and Serbia in the group stage but which at the same time manages to demolish two battleships such as Germany and Spain. The team will finish the tournament in fifth place with the possibility of participating in the pre-Olympic tournament to play for a place in Rio next year. Next year at the helm of the national team, however, there will no longer be coach Pianigiani but Ettore Messina, one of the most successful Italian coaches in history. It will be a Messina-bis given that the Sicilian coach has already led Italy in the 90s, also winning silver at the '97 European Championships.??
After a disappointment it's time to move on to triumphs and he certainly gave us the most exciting technical level Gregorio Paltrinieri, without a doubt, the new point of reference for Italian swimming. At only 21 years old, Greg, as they call him in the swimming environment, has already taken on the inheritance of the various Emiliano Brembilla, Massimiliano Rosolino and Filippo Magnini despite him being the long distance specialist. He has already replaced their charisma and has done so with stunning performances for the past few years. 2015 was then the apotheosis with the screaming 1500 meters at the Kazan Arena in this summer's world championships in which, taking advantage of the forfeit of the previous favorite Sun Yang, he defeated the competition from Cochrane and Jaeger by winning the medal gold and printing a 14′ 39” 93 which also earned him the new European record. But Greg, perhaps, hadn't finished surprising us and he reserved us a surprise a few weeks before the new year with his best performance ever in the short course in the 1500 metres. The context is that of the European Short Course Championships in Israel where Greg closed his performance in 14′ 08” 06 lowering the world record of a great swimmer of the past like Grant Hackett by two seconds.?? Here is the video of the last tank at the European Championships in Israel.
From triumphs in the pool to those far and wide on the streets of Italy and Spain. We are talking about Fabio Arau, the Sardinian cyclist of Team Astana who collected a second place in the Giro d'Italia in May and who then triumphed in September in the Vuelta Espana. In the pink race the young climber gave Alberto Contador a hard time questioning the final victory until the penultimate stage. In this year's Giro Aru conquered two high mountain stages, winning first at the finish line in Cervinia and the following day in Sestriere after sending Alberto Contador off the revs on Colle delle Finestre, Coppi peak of the 2015 Giro.
But Aru packs the real masterpiece and gives it to his beloved Sardinia in the Vuelta Espana, the three-week stage race that takes place in Spain in September. There were practically all the best riders in stage racing except Contador. Aru's opponents were people of the caliber of Nairo Quintana (pink jersey in 2014), Chris Froome (twice in yellow in 2 and 2013), Alejandro Valverde (six podiums at the Vuelta), Joaquin Rodriguez, a Catalan with a kilometer record and Tom Dumoulin, Dutch long distance rider, true revelation of this Vuelta. Vincenzo Nibali was also there but we'll talk about the Vuelta and the 2015 of Aru's Sicilian teammate a little later.
In this Vuelta 2015, Aru he simply proved to be decidedly the strongest by eliminating his most accredited opponents stage after stage and regaining the red jersey by slipping it off the shoulders of a moving Dumoulin and wearing it up to the final finish line in Madrid. Despite his young age, Aru showed great experience and a great tactical sense by managing to win the Spanish race without taking any stage wins.
Here is the summary of the 20th stage, the one in which Aru definitively regains the red leader's jersey.
If 2015 was the year of Aru's consecration, the same certainly cannot be said for his friend and teammate Vincenzo Nibali who, despite the successes in the Italian road championship and the Giro di Lombardia, certainly cannot be said to be satisfied with the year that is about to end. The bitterest disappointment was the Tour de France never played as a protagonist for the winner of the previous year. The fourth place finish in the general standings can be deceiving but the overall delay of more than 8 and a half minutes from the winner Froome suggests that the 2015 edition will soon have to be put on file for the Sicilian champion. But it must be said that the 2015 Tour was certainly not lucky for Nibali, who was repeatedly delayed by holes in the peloton or by falls, such as in the case of the sixth stage where he ends up under a forest of bikes after being involved in a fall caused by the yellow jersey of that fraction Tony Martin. Luck, which had partly helped Nibali in the 2014 Tour, presented the bill to the Sicilian the following year. Nibali's only sharp point in this Tour was the one in the Alpine stage with arrival in La Toussuire when he left the peloton more than 50km from the finish and went on to win solo after catching all the breakaways from the first hour.
In Spain, at the Vuelta, things went even worse for the Sicilian who performed badly and was disqualified from the race. After a crash less than 30 km from the finish, Vincenzo Nibali lagged behind the best and thus thought it best to get help from the Astana flagship by being towed for several hundred metres. Pinched by the cameras of the race here comes the disqualification on time. The Sicilian's 2015 ends with victory in the last classic of the season: the Giro di Lombardia. The hope of sportsmen and cycling lovers is that the success of Como can be a good omen hoping to see the best Nibali again in 2016.????
Moving on to the Italians of tennis, it must be said that up until the beginning of September it seemed like a certainly not exciting season but then what not even the most incurable optimists could expect happened: two Italians in the final of the singles of the Us Open Flavia Pennetta against Roberto Vinci. And one of them (Roberta Vinci) arrives in the final after having destroyed technically and psychologically in the semifinal, and in comeback, the dominatrix of the season Serena Williams. Many key steps in her comeback on number 1 Serena Williams. Among these also her fabulous point in the seventh game of the third set in which she responds to every attack by Williams leaving the Flushing Meadows audience open-mouthed and asking for an applause for her too while Serena astonished remains on her legs. Here is the splendid summary in the Sky Sports Tennis video.
In the end he wins the US Open 2015 Flavia Pennetta but the party is both aware of having written an indelible page in the history of tennis, not only in Italy but in the world.?? For the tennis player from Brindisi Flavia Pennetta, success at the US Open is the best way to say goodbye to tennis, announcing it live right at the end of the match, as a winner.
As far as team sports are concerned, the almost perfect season finale of the Juventus, dominatrix in the championship, winner in the Italian Cup and finalist in the Champions League. Allegri's team won the pass to the final of the Berlin Olympiastadion with luck and determination by beating Borussia Dortmund, Monaco and Carletto Ancelotti's Real Madrid in the knockout phase. In the final against Barcelona, however, all the extraordinary talent of Luis Enrique's men emerged. Juve surrendered to Barça 3-1 after having fought absolutely evenly for over an hour. The new season reopens with a few too many cracks for the black and whites forced to chase in the league after they had only picked up 5 points after the first six days, registering the worst black and white start in the league in the last 45 years. But football is strange and often reserves surprises so much so that at the Christmas break Juve are now only 3 points from the top of the standings after having strung together 7 consecutive victories.??
We close the roundup of 2015 of Italians with engines. There Ferrari Formula 1 he closed 2015 with an excellent second place in the constructors' championship and third position for Vettel. If on the one hand the dominance of the Mercedes is confirmed, on the other we cannot forget the three high notes of Sebastian Vettel, in his first year with the Reds. In short, 2015 was the year in which Maranello laid the foundations for winning again next year: Mercedes are warned.
As far as motorized two-wheelers are concerned, all the attention is on Valentino Rossi and for his World Championship faded into the finale of one of the most beautiful and hottest MotoGP seasons ever. The rider from Pesaro raced brilliantly for practically the whole season showing a constancy, a regularity that no one has been able to even imitate. Second place in the general standings, behind teammate and rival Jorge Lorenzo, comes amidst a thousand regrets for what happened especially in Sepang with the episode of the alleged "soccer" to Marc Marquez. That fact doomed the Doctor. The penalty inflicted by the race direction with the consequent start from last place in the final gp of Valencia effectively ousted the Pesaro from the race for the title and handed the success to Jorge Lorenzo, perfect in the last home race and winner of the 2015 world championship .
