That the Paralympic Defense Sports Group, better known as GSPD, was a particular reality, capable of discovering unexpressed potential and enhancing them, it was immediately understood, but this time the three archers are telling this "invention" - the Marshal CC Buonaventura Bove, Lieutenant Colonel EI Roberto Punzo and Lieutenant Colonel AM Fabio Tomasulo - winners of the Invictus Games of Orlando of the first team medal in archery.
The GSPD
The GSPD plays an important role for the three archers. "It is an opportunity, an outlet valve", Said Fabio Tomasulo, who admits to practicing sport more now than before as a normal person. "The sport - always continues Tomasulo - it is giving us the opportunity to come out of the shell, it is the extra incentive to show others that disability has not blocked us. Thanks to sport we are able to give something to the Fatherland, not in uniform but in gym clothes and representing Italy in international contexts. I at GSPD believed it right away. Our experience serves newcomers, with whom we can share experiences, and for whom we can be points of reference".
Buonaventura Bove also thinks of newcomers to the GSPD, who certainly has more years and experience than young people, to whom he feels he can give some advice: "the GSPD makes you feel both human and sporty. It is preparatory to the beginning of a new life. The importance lies in the group, like a single rope towards climbing: nobody stays behind, we help each other all together". It is thanks to the GSPD that Bove, today effective at the Carabinieri Provincial Command of Salerno, but who contracted the disability in service in the 1993, has found a dimension of his own, as he himself admits: "before my day was marked between office and home; now thanks to the sport I go to the office, then I train and then go home".
Even Roberto Punzo says he is proud to be part of this reality that engages him every day and not only at a sporting level. "The GSPD, the first joint military sports group, is the concrete realization of words that would otherwise remain abstract. È a virtuous practice, an example of civilization, a different way of thinking about sport, as Pancalli of CIP says (Italian Paralympic Committee) ". And it is precisely with regard to the concept of paralimpism that Punzo specifies: "the paralympic adjective, present in the acronym of the GSPD is misleading. The group is called Paralympic because it was born thanks to a protocol of understanding between the Ministry of Defense and the CIP, but military sport for people with disabilities in these two years has already known new experiences. The CISM (International Military Sports Council) has admitted us to the World Military Games in Korea in the 2015. We were few, but the new fact is: for the first time in the history of mankind, people with disabilities and those with disabilities have, even in different categories, competed together. For the first time the Armed Forces of the world have given a concrete example of what integration means ”.
The farsightedness of the CISM and the FA, in general, is aimed at creating a sporting dimension that goes beyond paralimpism, which accepts people with physical disabilities, but also with psychological problems.
On the other hand, it is Punzo himself who affirms: "We are not going to add to an already exceptional sporting reality. We are not going to teach anyone sport. We don't care. The novelty is that within a service context, people with disabilities have possibilities that they might not have in other work contexts. The sport practice has a double value: on the one hand it allows the person to regain confidence in his body, on the other hand to re-enter society. It will be important in the future to preserve the capacity for aggregation, for social integration, which is the distillation of the simple promotion of sports activity ".
The target and the arrow.
Technique and calm: these are the characteristics that led Bove to practice archery. As a young man the Marshall of the Carabinieri practiced rowing at a competitive level, a passion that brought him closer, in the Group, to rowing.
Tomasulo, on the other hand, chose it because: "it is the discipline that attracted me right away. I had already practiced gun and rifle shooting during military training and it came easy to me". Thanks to sport, it is used today at the Military Aeronautics Sports Center in Vigna di Valle.
Punzo, who considers this his condition as "extra time" after being wounded in a mission in Lebanon in the 2006, states that sports must be perceived as a gift that your new condition gives you. From there, his interest in archery and parabadminton, of which he is the first Italian player in history.
The stubbornness. The technician. The decided.
Disability is diversity. The differences must be valued and it is these that make Bove, Tomasulo and Punzo a team: respectively the stubborn, the technical and the determined. In the final of the archery in Orlando, each of them put his own. Conceive, organize and lead: the medal was their goal and they have transferred military operations into the sport. A bronze, of which I am proud, first GSPD team medal, first interforce.
An excellent result considering the distance that separates the three archers and the impossibility of always training together. On the other hand, as Tomasulo himself says: "if we had the opportunity to be all in one center, we could do many more team games, but in Italy there is a different conception than in other nations: for us it is important to wear the uniform. In the other states, disabled military personnel only do sport".
The GSPD values the resources, human and material resources available to the FA, but it is not just sport or a team. It is friendship, it is the involvement of one's own families, it is to live official and unofficial gatherings together, it is fun, sharing and the desire to always test yourself.
The near future.
The future of the three archers is full of competitions: regional, interregional, championships and then the appointment with Invictus Games in Toronto in September 2017, where Bove states: "we expect to do well and we will try to reinforce the concept of team". Tomasulo, for his part, also has a personal objective, that of calling a national Paralympic match. Punzo, instead, from bersagliere continues to make "breach" in other sports. In addition to archery and parabadminton, think about golf, "they are opportunities that must be seized. I set the conditions for others to find the way open".
And if really how it says "We are not what life has made us. We are what we are going to do with our lives”, Sure that they will continue to give us satisfaction and excitement.
