Congratulations to Cinzia Noziglia from Italy, IWGA Athlete of the Month for October 2022.
Thrice is nice for the 37-year-old barebow archer. Cinzia Noziglia achieved a triple this year: she won as the reigning champion The World Games gold medal in Birmingham, USA, in July. She was crowned as World Archery 3D Champion in her home country in September. In October she completed a perfect season with another title at the World Archery Field Championships in Yankton, USA.
Winning all the competitions, the Italian athlete is at the top in her sport; no doubt that Cinzia Noziglia has been in a class of her own. Moreover, there was another première to celebrate: “It’s my first gold medal in field. It’s unbelievable,” she said after she dominated France’s Christine Gauthe in the final, 58-44. Still, it was not the first time she topped the podium in Yankton: she won gold in the women’s team event and was runner-up in the barebow mixed team event.
The three major tournaments on the barebow calendar are not usually held in the same year, but The World Games and World Archery 3D Championships (named from the three-dimensional animal targets) were delayed one year due to the pandemic. Cinzia Noziglia took advantage of this opportunity and grand-slammed in her discipline. It’s quite likely that she wrote history, because it will probably never happen again that the three most important tournaments in barebow will be staged in one year.
One short remark, what is a barebow: It’s a basic style of recurve bow, which uses the same modern materials but does not permit accessories to aid in aiming or stabilisation. The discipline has been on The World Games programme since 1985.
While there were so many firsts, the last sentence of this article comes from the Athlete of the Month herself: “Probably I was in a flow. I don’t know how many points I shot but I think I shot very good.”
The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association, organised with the support of the International Olympic Committee. The World Games 2022 was held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 7-17 July 2022. 3,600 athletes from 34 sports and 100 countries took part in the Games. The 12th edition of The World Games will be held in Chengdu, CHN in 2025.
