Italy swept the titles at last week’s European Youth Olympic Festival in Gyor, Hungary. The girls beat Belarus 3-2 in the gold medal match and the boys beat France 3-1.
The bi-annual, multi-sport, summer and winter event pits youth teams from across Europe against each other in 11 summer and 9 winter sports.
For the boys’ team, the win avenged an earlier loss to France in the group stage. “I am almost lost for words,” Italian player Lorenzo Sperotto said after the win. “The French team is extremely strong, but we wanted to prove that the outcome of the group stage match was unrealistic. Perhaps this was the secret of our success.”
Italy won bronze medals in both competitions at the last edition in 2015.
The tournament started with some drama as the Dutch team withdrew from the competition after a significant portion of their team contracted a virus at a previous international competition.
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