30th July was a special day at ISSF House, starting with shooting sport medallists coming to sign the Wall of Unity before an epic evening’s entertainment to celebrate a legendary figure of the sport – Ennio Matarelli – who won a gold medal at the 1964 Olympic Games for Italy in shotgun trap.
Before driving up to Paris to celebrate Serbia’s first gold medal of these Olympic Games, the Serbian air pistol mixed team gold medallists Zorana Arunovic and Damir Mikec visited ISSF House for media interviews and to sign the Wall of Unity. A few hours later, the silver medallists from that event, Turkiye’s Yusuf Dikec and Sevval Ilayda Tarhan, also spent time at ISSF House, celebrating the first ever shooting sport medal for their country.ç
At the opening of the dinner, ISSF Family guests were able to celebrate with Oh Ye Jin from Korea, who won gold in the 10m Pistol Women, Jean Pierre Brol Cardenas from Guatemala, who took the bronze in men trap. President Luciano Rossi gave commemorative plaques to them as well as to the youngest participant at these Olympics, 15 year old Mohammad Beyranvand from Iran.
The President then introduced the theme of the night, with Silvia Mattarelli invited on stage to celebrate the 60th anniversary of her father’s Tokyo Olympic Games triumph, with the great man, now 96, charming the audience with a specially filmed interview shown on the big screen.
It was also the perfect opportunity to welcome Paolo Salvato, the CEO of Gruppo Fiocchi & Nicola Perazzi, part of the family whose shotguns were synonymous with Ennio Mattarelli’s career. Mr Salvato then presented a special award on behalf of the Perazzi family.
Continuing with the awards part of the evening, ISSF Vice President John Hansen presented commemorative plaques to Thomas Walti, representing Sius, and Franco Gussalli, representing Beretta and RWS.
US shooting legend and ISSF Vice President Kim Rhode, then presented plaques to Carlo Gussalli and Carlo Ferlito of Beretta and to David Stepan, managing director of the Ammo + division of CSG.
But before the evening ended, the recently crowned gold medallist for men’s trap, Great Britain’s Nathan Hales, made a surprise appearance, to the delight of the guests.
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