by Danilo Di Pasquale - https://www.facebook.com/danilodp

While people constantly talk about destination marketing, place branding and experiential events, Teramo has been doing it for more than fifty years.

Thousands of young athletes, coaches, families and team officials from dozens of countries experience the city, filling hotels, restaurants, squares and sports facilities. But above all, they create memories that are meant to last a lifetime.

For those who work in hospitality, the Interamnia represents much more than a sporting event.

It is concrete proof that hospitality is a powerful tool for diplomacy, economic development and territorial promotion.

A major event does not leave behind only tourist numbers.

It leaves reputation.
It leaves relationships.
It leaves belonging.

In an age when many destinations are searching for an identity, Teramo has possessed, for decades, an intangible heritage of international value.

Perhaps we should tell this story even more.

Because Interamnia World Cup is not only the story of handball.

It is the story of how sport can become the universal language of hospitality.

For me, Interamnia World Cup is this.

It is a piece of my own story, one that I have loved and still love; a piece of Teramo’s history and of the history of thousands of people who, over the years, have had the privilege of experiencing it.

I was lucky enough to know it closely, very closely. To breathe its atmosphere, to understand its authentic value, to see with my own eyes how much passion, work and dedication have always stood behind every edition.

I have known extraordinary people who devoted an important part of their lives to this dream.

I think of President Pierluigi Montauti, of the late Giorgio Binchi, of Fabrizio Quaranta and of so many others, often far from the spotlight, who loved Interamnia World Cup with a rare sense of belonging.

To them we owe much more than a sporting event.

We owe a cultural, human and identity-shaping heritage that has made Teramo known throughout the world.

It is increasingly clear that Interamnia World Cup is at a decisive point in its history.

A turning point.

And it is precisely in moments like these that a community must choose whether to limit itself to memories or commit itself so that those memories can become the future.

Interamnia World Cup does not belong to one person, to one association or to one administration.

It belongs to all of us, to the people of Teramo.

That is why it must be protected. It must be supported. It must be renewed. Through facts. Not with empty words.

It deserves to shine again as it did for decades, because its value goes far beyond a sporting competition: it is a symbol of hospitality, friendship, dialogue between peoples and pride for our city.

We owe it to those who built it. To those who worked for it with indomitable passion.

We owe it to the young people who must continue to experience it.

And I owe it to my children, because one day I would so much like them, too, to meet in Piazza Martiri, at Campo 1, after forty years, the French referee friend George, and to be moved by a friendship that is distant, yet deep.

This is Interamnia World Cup.