Italy By Christopher Tsiopelakos

Interesting facts about Italy Rome is the capital city of Italy. The total population of Italy is 58,103,033 Rome is often called the ‘Eternal City’ Italy loves sports especially soccer, skiing, cycling and motor racing. Italy is famous for their inventions and discoveries such as Leonardo da Vinci, Marco Polo and Christopher Colombus.

Interesting facts pt2 The colour of the flags represent different meanings Red: Charity Green: Hope White: Faith Italy has 3 active volcanoes in the south: Etna on Sicily, Vesuvius near Naples and Stromboli off the coast of Italy. Italy has many delicious traditional foods such as lasagne, pasta, gelato, pizza and pesto.

National emblem The National emblem of Italy is a white star and a wreath and the national animal is the Italian wolf.

Father of the modern olympics The father of the Modern Olympics is Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

The Olympic motto The Olympic Motto is made up of 3 Latin words: Citius, Altius, Fortius which means Faster, Higher, Stronger.

The Olympic oath The Olympic Oath is one of the rituals of the Olympic games. This is when every athlete promises to play fairly and obey all Olympic rules. The athletes say “In the name of all the competitors, I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the glory of our teams”. This was written by Baron de Coubertin.

MARCO GALIAZZO ITALIAN OLYMPIAN Born: Padova, Italy 07/05/1983 Age: 29 Sport: Men’s ARCHERY Team and Men’s Individual Won individual Gold at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Won men’s team Gold at London 2012 Olympic Games

Four facts about Marco Galiazzo His coach is his father, Adriano Galiazzo His previous Olympics were Bejing 2008 and Athens 2004 He works for the Armed Forces He was the first Italian to win a Gold Medal in Archery in the individual event in Athens 2004.

SUCCESS THROUGHOUT THE GAMES On the 30 th July 2012 at the London Olympics, Marco lost to Mexican Juan Rene Serrano 6-2. On the 28 th July, the Italian team won GOLD medal against USA winning at And in the men’s team semi finals Italy won against Mexico.

MEDAL TALLY FOR ITALY FENCING 3 GOLD 2 SILVER 2 BRONZE = 7 SHOOTING 2 GOLD 3 SILVER - BRONZE = 5 TAEKWONDO 1 GOLD - SILVER 1 BRONZE =2 CANOE SLALOM 1 GOLD - SILVER - BRONZE=1 ARCHERY 1 GOLD - SILVER - BRONZE = 1 Italy came 8 th in the Olympic tally for London 2012