The editorial staff Wednesday, August 9, 2023, 10:46 p.m

Guaranteed show at the Hippodrome Snai San Siro in Milan excellent setting for its 2023 edition FEI European Jumping Championships scheduled from Wednesday 30 August to Sunday 3 September. Eighty-two, among Amazons and riders representing 25 nations, will be the undisputed protagonists of four days of sport at the highest level. The best continental show jumpers will indeed be present in Milan, as confirmed by the final entries closed yesterday and made official by the FEI.

The sheer value of the entrants to the 37th edition of the European Show Jumping Championships is underlined by the FEI world rankings which have just been published. As many as 7 of the top 10 and 16 of the top 25 riders will actually be at the start at the Snai San Siro Racecourse in Milan.

Above all the poker that leads to the ranking formed by the Swede Heinrich von Eckermannundisputed number 1 in the world, by the French Julien Epaillardfrom Dutch Harry Smolders and from Switzerland Martin Fuchs (which, among other things, boasts the individual European title won in 2019 in Rotterdam. The reigning European champion, the German Andre Timme which brings back DSP Chakaria with whom he had won the title in 2021 a Riesembeck.

The presence of 16 teams vying for the team title (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary and Italy) has been confirmed, while they are represented individually it is 9 (Bulgaria, Greece, Liechtenstein, Israel, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine).

The five blues of the Italy team

Emmanuel Camille, Frances Ciriesi, Giampiero Garofalo, Emmanuel Gaudiano And Alberto Zorzi are the five blues of Italy’s Team for the 2023 FEI European Jumping Championships.

In Milan, the team led by Marco Porro will try to win on the field one of three passes to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, a goal that has eluded Italy in show jumping for 20 years.

Emmanuel Camille
Romano, born on October 17, 1982, has lived in Germany for years. For a few seasons he was one of the points of reference for Team Italia with whom he took part in the Herning World Championship last summer, his first international championship. He rides Odense Odeveld, a rapidly developing nine-year-old Belgian horse, as evidenced by his four clean runs (two in the Nations Cup and two in the Grand Prix) at the CSIO in Falsterbo, Sweden.

Frances Ciriesi
Born in Modena, where she lives, on June 16, 1993, she is an agent of the Fiamme Oro of the State Police. In 2022 he won the Absolute National title and made his international championship debut at the Herning World Cup. His partner in the Cape Coral competition, a 13-year-old female who is also showing at Milan 2023. In May she was one of the stars of Italy’s second place in the Intesa Sanpaolo Nations Cup.

Giampiero Garofalo
The Neapolitan born on May 19, 1994 lives in Belgium. He is the son and brother of art. Paolo’s father competed at a good level, while his brother Antonio is one of the blue teams’ top riders. First aviator selected by the Aeronautica Militare Sports Center, this year he became Italian Champion riding Max Van Lents Schrans, an 11-year-old jumper riding in Milan. Team bronze at the 2018 Mediterranean Games and his first European.

Emmanuel Gaudiano
He was born in Matera on June 30, 1996. He returned to Italy in the last few months after living in Germany for seventeen years. A rider with a lot of experience and countless victories (49 so far in the current season) he is the “Captain” in the pectore, of Team Italia. Number 23 in the international FEI ranking, in his career he has participated in two Olympic Games (Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo), two World Championships (Caen, Tryon) and three European Championships (Madrid, Herning, Aachen). In Milan he rides the 11-year-old stallion Crack Balou.

Alberto Zorzi
Born in Padua on February 16, 1989, he returned to Italy in February after seven years in the Netherlands. It is his second European Championship after the one in Gothenburg in 2017 in which he finished fourth individually, the best result for an Azzurri in a European Championship in the last 50 years (Hickstead 1973, 4th by Vittorio Orlandi with Fiorello II). With the selected graduate rank he competes for the Military Equestrian Center of the Italian Army. In Milan, the 11-year-old gray Highlight W walks.

Il Cittì Marco Porro (Milan, April 26, 1964)
From December 2021 he is a member of the blue national show jumping team. In 2016 he entered the federal framework first as a young horse technician and then, from 2018, as a technician for racing activities up to three-star races. Under him, Italy won the 2021 and 2022 EEF Series Warsaw final twice in a row.