FONTANAFREDDA WHEELCHAIR
RUGBY TOURNAMENT

„FriulAdria Six Nations Cup“
 
EVRA had proclaimed the year 2014 at the year of support to the Sport for disable people and again the Town of Fontanafredda and the Tournament organiser Claudio da Ponte were the first to organise the Wheel Chair Rugby Tournament with the participation of  six National teams from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia, Switzerland and Italia.

The “newcomer” Austria, that is right on the top of Italy at IWRF world ranking, have traditionally  friendly relations with the host Country, since Italy provided them with wheel chairs and playing skills for a long time, also thanks to the Italian coach René Schwarz.

Russia (ended at the third position) was the true revelation of the Tournament, being  young team but determine to win, displaying mainly its high pointers.
The Tournament winners were experienced players from Czech Republic with the captain of Prague Robots, David Lukes.

For the Best player of the Tournament  was proclaimed René Hernesz.

The Event hosted also the referee clinic for Italian referees with IWRF officials Anke Opiela, Kathi Adler and Gabe Caligiuri as the result of the increasing drive which FISPES and Claudio da Ponte push to the wheelchair movement in Italy.
Two new clubs from Rome and Milan, that also organize EVRA European Series Veteran tournaments, joined the Italian wheelchair rugby panorama, what will hopefully enable that  the next edition(s) of the Rugby Festival(s) will be even more entertaining.

Let us finish this report with Claudio da Ponte words: “2014 Rugby Festival  connects the world of able bodied  and that of wheelchair rugby players under the common belief  that there are different ways of playing our Game, but there is no real difference between sports for able bodied people and those disabled.
It is all just Sport, just as much as I hope that once there will be just Olympic Games.”

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