Legacy

Every major sporting event brings with it the power of its sporting discipline, the energy of thousands of athletes, fans, and media attention at the international level, and for each the goal is to win, increase its visibility, and create an unforgettable spectacle.

Major events or high-level sports, often rich in television rights, are more focused on the competitive narrative than the narrative of sport as a vehicle for inclusivity and well-being. For this reason, the Milan 2023 World Championships Organizing Committee believes that it must organize and bring to life to the area a high-level event that represents more than just the celebration of medals or world champions.

Senior Fencing World Championships Milan 2023 wants to be a time to celebrate sport, but also to deepen and relaunch central social values such as inclusion and attention to the potential of the sport-disability relationship.

The strong legacy is determined by the interpretation of this Organizing Committee, which believes that a major event has and should have much broader goals, such as transforming the spectacle into long-term memory, involving the territory throughout the year leading up to it, building projects that reach different targets and leave a positive and recoverable mark on everyone over time.

To this end, different targets have been identified such as schools (6 - 19 years old), universities (19- 25), cross-falling social targets such as oratories and NGO associations dedicated to disability services.

Numerous are the tools that fencing will use to reach the legacy goals such as the values of its sport discipline, grassroots activity, its Olympic and Paralympic athletes, the historical memory that leaves emotions and passion, all tools that can and must impact to leave a positive trace on the different targets identified.

Fencing must tell the story of its capacity and tradition of inclusion. In fact, fencing is one of the few fully integrated sports where Olympians and Paralympians pull together. It is no coincidence that the Italian Fencing Federation submitted, and won, the bid, simultaneously, for the World and Paralympic world championships.

All of the organized side events include the simultaneous presence of Olympic and Paralympic sports. The projects recounted here pay special attention to the target audience of physical and intellectual disabilities; in essence, we want to bring and initiate sports and disability projects that can turn into ongoing events, a sign of collaboration and commitment that must continue over time.

It should not be overlooked that sports account for 4 percent of Italy’s GDP and that the reduction of investment in sports causes many young people to abandon a healthy and correct lifestyle, which, by definition, results in higher social costs over time. Scientific evidence shows that through proper sports exercise we produce well-being, cognitive implementation, social inclusiveness, expansion of relationships as well as respect and good practices for the protection of environmental resources.

Unfortunately, Italy ranks very high in Europe in terms of population sedentariness (40%).

Inspired by these analyses, the Organizing Committee has imagined a package of initiatives to be left on the territory of the World Cup 2023, and beyond, that will spread and activate stable good practices on the different targets and the dissemination of the values of sport that represent an essential construction for the future.

The World Cup Milan 2023 with its collateral activities can, and must, become a great opportunity for social awareness on issues concerning the psychological well-being and inclusiveness of people living conditions of discomfort and disability, a moment of training and dissemination of essential values for social growth such as relationship skills, well-being, protection of environmental resources and much more.

The World Championships will, therefore, be a 360-degree event starting in 2022 and ending with the Senior Fencing World Championships Milan event in 2023.