WBSC President Riccardo Fraccari received on Tuesday, 12 October, the Golden Collar of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) during a ceremony at the Auditorium La Verdi in Milan.
CONI President Giovanni Malagò and the Italian Vice Minister for Sports Valentina Vezzali, a former fencing Olympic champion, attended the ceremony. The national TV channel RAI Sport broadcasted the event live.
"We resisted the COVID-19 outbreak," said Malagò. "Now it was time to honour those recipients of the Golden Collar we couldn't award last year. We chose Milano because this is a city that supported, together with Cortina, the idea of hosting the Winter Olympics in Italy when it was not easy to do so."
Malagò presented the Golden Collar to President Fraccari. "Bringing back baseball/softball to the programme of the Tokyo 2020 Games was some memorable achievement. The work Riccardo has done as the president of international baseball/softball will remain in the history of Italian sports forever."
President Fraccari said it was "a great honour" to receive the Golden Collar, which is the highest honour awarded by CONI. "I really want to thank the Italian Olympic Committee for its ability to support teamwork," he said.
The Golden Collar goes to athletes who have earned world titles or Olympic gold medals and sports officials who bring glory and contribute to the Italian sports movement.
The Board of the Directors of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) awarded Fraccari the honour in November 2020. The ceremony was postponed amid the second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak.
CONI also awarded the Golden Collar to Sabatino Aracu (roller sports) and Marco Scolaris (sports climbing), the other two Italian presidents of international federations whose sports were added to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
