Edoardo Mangiarotti

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Edoardo Mangiarotti (born April 7, 1919 in Milan ; † May 25, 2012 ibid) was an Italian fencer who was successful with both the rapier and the foil .

Life

youth

Giuseppe Mangiarotti (1883-1970) was a successful epee fencer who was able to win 17 Italian championship titles. In 1908 he opened a fencing hall in Milan, in which he introduced Italian epee fencers to the top of the world. His sons Dario Mangiarotti and Edoardo, who was a little over three years younger, were among his students . Edoardo turned out to be the more talented of the two. At the age of eleven he became youth champion with the foil. At the age of 16 he first took part in the world championships for adults. His father had retrained the right-hander Edoardo into a left-hander, which made him more difficult for his opponents to fence, since the majority of all fencers are right-handed.

Early career

In 1936 Edoardo Mangiarotti won his first Olympic gold medal as a member of the Italian epee team . In 1937 he became world champion with the team and in 1938 he won silver in the epee singles, bronze with the epee team and gold with the foil team at the world championship .

During the Second World War he had a training accident in which a tendon was cut in his left hand. And so the trained left-hander had to retrain to right-handed.

1947-1952

In 1947 Mangiarotti won bronze at the World Championships in Lisbon both in the foil singles and with the epee team. In 1948 Edoardo won bronze in the epee singles and twice silver with the teams at the Olympic Games . At the 1949 World Cup , Dario won the epee singles, Edoardo won bronze and twice team gold. In 1950 he also won with both teams. In 1951 Edoardo also won the epee individual world title for the first time .

The absolute highlight in the career of the two brothers came in 1952 at the Olympic Games : Edoardo won gold in the epee singles and with the team and silver in the foil singles and with the team. Dario was also part of the victorious sword team and won silver in the epee singles. The fact that two Italian brothers won Olympic gold together was nothing new, as Nedo Nadi and Aldo Nadi had already achieved in 1920.

1956-1961

While Dario's career was over, Edoardo was back in shape in time for the 1956 Games . In the epee singles it came to the curious situation that three Italian fencers, Carlo Pavesi , Giuseppe Delfino and Edoardo Mangiarotti were tied with five wins and two defeats each after the final. After the first round of the playoff, each of the three had a win and a loss. It was midnight when Mangiarotti lost twice in the second playoff. Ultimately, Pavesi then won gold ahead of Delfino and Mangiarotti. In retrospect, we know that three fencers met each other in a play-off, who should also win the individual title in epee fencing one after the other. Unsurprisingly, they won gold together with the epee team and Edoardo rounded off his collection with a gold medal with the foil team.

In 1960 Edoardo took part again at the Olympic Games in Rome at the age of 41, the youngest fencer in the Italian team from 1936 had become the oldest of the team 24 years later. At the end of his career, he won again gold with the epee team and silver with the foil team.

Edoardo Mangiarotti retired from active competitive sports in 1961.

The life after

Edoardo continued his father's fencing school together with Dario. Both acted as instructors for several generations of world class fencers.

Mangiarotti's daughter Carola was also active as a fencer and took part in the Olympic Games in Montreal and Moscow .

Olympic successes

  • 1936 : Gold epee team
  • 1948 : Bronze sword single
  • 1948: Silver sword team (with Dario)
  • 1948: Silver foil team
  • 1952 : Gold epee singles (before Dario)
  • 1952: Gold epee team (with Dario)
  • 1952: Silver foil single
  • 1952: Silver foil team
  • 1956 : bronze sword single
  • 1956: Gold epee team
  • 1956: Gold Foil Team
  • 1960 : Gold epee team
  • 1960: Silver foil team

Historical comparison

In total, five fencers have won six (or more) Olympic gold medals:

Gerevich won the most gold medals at the Olympic Games with 7. Nadi won the most gold medals at the same games with 5 (1920). Mangiarotti won the most medals overall with 13.

If you add up the medals from the Olympic Games and World Championships, Mangiarotti is clearly ahead with 39.

The IOC named Mangiarotti in a 2003 letter as the most decorated athlete in all sports and the greatest fencer in sports history.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carola Mangiarotti in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original ), accessed on September 3, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Mangiarotti, Edoardo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian fencer and Olympic champion
DATE OF BIRTH April 7, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH May 25, 2012
Place of death Milan