Intesa Sanpaolo and Jesi Fencing Club

From WWII South African to Olympic triumphs. From the ashes of a society that needed to be rebuilt from scratch to a prominent position in the history of the country. This is the parabola in which Jesi Fencing Club includes, in a little over seventy years, all the narrative, human and value power of sport, the true tool for transformation and growth.

Ezio Triccoli. It's impossible not to begin with him, who is the founding father of this incredible Italian excellence. It is precisely through sport that he could put his life back together first, and then his hometown. Imprisoned during the African campaigns and interned in the Zonderwater camp, not far from Pretoria, the Jesi-born young man learned from an English non-commissioned officer — a fellow prisoner — the art of fencing, finding a new reason for living.

Back in Marche, in 1947, he founded the Club, building on the ruins of Italy, devastated by the occupation and torn to shreds by the civil war, a new path towards the future. Fencing is a new sport at these latitudes. In the beginning, it struggled to impose itself in a country where sports fans' hearts mostly beat for football and cycling heroes. The formers represent the proud localist and territorial belonging, while the others are the symbol of the greatest effort, authentic national heroes who ride on two wheels through all the regions of the country.

Yet fencing, over time, has made its way into the collective imagination, thanks to the unique mix of talent, discipline, and elegance necessary to master it. A discipline with a chivalrous imprint and which reveals, in the emphasis of the competition, the deepest character of those who have stepped on the platform. Year after year, decade after decade, the school of Jesi began to establish itself as the true Italian reference point. It then also discovered a marked Olympic vocation.

The long wave of the Master's lesson continued to make its influence felt, while, from the walls of a Club that every four years became more prestigious, new talents began to come out, which would define the success of the entire Italian movement. Annarita Sparaciari, Susanna Batazzi, Stefano Cerioni, Giovanna Trillini, Valentina Vezzali, Elisa Di Francisca and Annalisa Coltorti are just some of the names that, starting from Marche, have climbed the peaks of Olympia, bringing the name of the Jesi Fencing Club to the top of the world rankings.

Even today, over seventy years after Triccoli's release from the internment camp and the intuition to found the school, the Club represents the highest level of excellence in the discipline and one of the most incredible stories of longevity, creativity, and success in the entire history of our Olympic Committee. Medals upon medals, which have allowed fencing to become one of the flagship sports of all our Five Circles expeditions, becoming a trademark of the tricolor movement.

Intesa Sanpaolo supports and promotes this tradition, which plans the greatness of the future on the past one, and which it has been able to achieve so much for the social development of the entire city that hosts it, as well. Innovation, research, discovery, and enhancement of talent, social commitment, and vision of tomorrow: these are the pillars of a reality known all over the world, and the blueprint of a unique project, whose values perfectly reflect those of the Company.