Extreme sports(women)
THIS one is for the “girl power” activists. It is for those who don’t believe in the “it’s a man’s world” nonsense. We are talking about Forza Italiano Special, a Trace Sports offering that shows us what a woman can do if she sets her mind to a given goal. We meet three extreme sports fanatics, Roberta Mancino, Valentina Vezzali and Josefa Idem.
Mancino on any given day is the girl next door kind of woman, if you were to focus on her good looks alone. However, if you were to be on a plane with her and Samuel L Jackson, with a couple of snakes roaming around like they did in Snakes on a Plane, then Mancino would gladly jump out and wave goodbye, as skydiving is her thing. She is also a base jumper, a wingsuit flyer and uses her looks in the modelling world.
On Trace Sports we follow how the Italian started out as a model for a few magazines at the tender age of 16. By chance she tried out skydiving, against her professional skydiver friend’s advice. The bug bit and she found out that, apart from modelling, she could jump out of planes for a living as she soon became a coach and an international competitor. Mixing modelling and skydiving has seen Mancino jump from a plane completely naked. We are not too sure if Trace Sports will give us a peek at that one.
Then there is Valentina Vezzali, the Italian fencer with six Olympic gold medals to her name. The mighty Zorro could even learn a thing or two from her. Her claim to fame is being one of only four people in the world in the Summer Olympics to have ever won five medals in one individual discipline. We follow her through her competition years and as a mother, wife and a member of Italy’s parliament.
Finally we look at Josefa Idem, who is known for incredible canoeing speeds. Starting out at 11, it was only a matter of time before she amassed 35 medals in her career. She may be 48 today but in 2009 she was still competing and she won a medal at the Canoe Sprint World Championships, making her the oldest medallist in the history of the competition.
These stories are told in documentary style and they aim to inspire women and sports fanatics to aim higher and achieve more.
Forza Italiana Special premiers tomorrow on Trace Sports (DStv channel 188) at 9pm.