Second place for Manila Esposito at the ‘Piotr Nurowski’ award, presented today in Frankfurt during the 54th General Assembly of the European Olympic Committees.

The Azzurra gymnast, Olympic silver medallist in the team final and Olympic bronze medallist on the balance beam at Paris 2024, had been selected among the five finalists for the award dedicated to the former tennis player and President of the Polish Olympic Committee, which the EOCs have been presenting since 2011 to celebrate Olympic values in young athletes.

The winner of the 2024 edition was Hungary’s Viviana Marton (taekwondo), ahead of the eighteen-year-old Fiamme Oro athlete and French table tennis player Felix Lebrun. Completing the ranking were Lithuania’s Dominika Banevic (breaking) and Germany’s Helen Kevric (artistic gymnastics).

Esposito, who also claimed four gold medals at the European Championships held in Rimini in 2024, was presented with her prize by outgoing EOCs Secretary General Raffaele Pagnozzi and CONI President Giovanni Malagò (photo: EOCs).

The ‘Piotr Nurowski’ award was previously won in 2017 by cyclist Letizia Paternoster and, three years earlier, by swimmer Simone Sabbioni. In 2020, biathlete Linda Zingerle became the first young Italia Team athlete to win the winter edition of the award, introduced in 2016.