Fanano to host Italy's junior inline freestyle championship showdown

Fanano spent four days doing what it has become built for: giving Italy’s youngest inline freestyle skaters a national stage where talent has to show up under pressure. The Bruno Tiezzi meet drew more than 200 Giovanissimi and Esordienti athletes from across the country, and the June 16 parade and opening ceremony set the tone before a single medal event began.

The competition itself was spread cleanly across the week. June 17 belonged to Classic Freestyle Slalom and Pair, June 18 to Battle and Speed Slalom, June 19 to Free Jump and Slide, and June 20 to Roller Cross. That kind of programming is not filler. It is a deliberate test of the skill stack coaches care about most at this age: edge control, timing, composure, and the ability to absorb one discipline and reset for the next. FISR’s broader Bruno Tiezzi structure also includes Skate Cross, scheduled in Sezzadio on June 26 to 28, showing how the federation is building a wide technical ladder instead of a single event stop.

That ladder matters because Fanano has become a real proving ground, not a ceremonial one. The town has hosted Bruno Tiezzi youth skating meetings in previous years, including the 2025 racing edition that drew more than 600 athletes from 80 clubs and 15 regions. That event also required Giovanissimi and Esordienti skaters to be registered as agonists for the 2024 to 2025 season, a reminder that FISR is using Fanano to separate raw interest from actual competitive readiness. In 2025, medals went to all participants, reinforcing the developmental logic behind the meet.

The setting helps explain why the circuit keeps coming back. The Palazzo del ghiaccio di Fanano sits at Via Don Battistini 20 and is listed as a 60 by 30 meter facility with parking, a bar, three changing rooms, lockers, equipment rental, and an adjacent restaurant. Fanano itself, about an hour from Modena and Bologna and 640 meters above sea level in the Monte Cimone area, has been framed by local tourism as a year-round sports base. For youth skating, that means a venue with enough room, enough services, and enough repeat exposure to feel like a championship site rather than a stopover.

Bruno Tiezzi’s name gives the event its larger purpose. Local and federation materials remember the former federation president as someone who saw sport as a tool for growth and social aggregation. Fanano is where that idea becomes visible on the floor: young skaters, technical disciplines, and a national federation using a four-day meet to identify who is ready for the next level and who still needs more time.