Fair Play Menarini International Award 2026: Thirty Years of Sport, Values and a New Generation of Champions
In 2026 the Fair Play Menarini International Award reaches its 30th edition: a milestone that looks back on three decades spent celebrating sport at its truest, where respect, fairness and generosity matter as much as winning.
Across those years the Award has gathered more than 400 of the greatest names in world sport: athletes remembered not only for what they won, but for how they competed.
This year’s edition carries that tradition forward with a full programme of events building towards the closing ceremony on Thursday 2 July in Florence at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Sky TG24 returns as broadcast partner, following each event as it happens and airing the closing evening live.
Fair Play Menarini: young athletes in the spotlight from day one
The first major date is Thursday 4 June, when the Salone d’Onore at CONI in Rome hosts the press conference that opens the edition. This is where the 2026 honourees will be announced, with Luciano Buonfiglio, President of the Italian National Olympic Committee, on hand for the occasion.
The Rome gathering holds a second significance. In this place that stands at the heart of Italian sport, the winners of the 2026 Fair Play Menarini “Young Athletes” will be honoured: a prize set aside for emerging talents who have placed the values of sport above the final score.
This year the honours go to Alberto Belluzzi, Gloria Tinaburri and Matteo Pasqualetti, athletes with their best years still ahead of them, who have nonetheless already shown remarkable courage.
Alberto Belluzzi, a fencer, flagged a refereeing error that had wrongly credited him with a win at the Under-23 Italian Championships in Caorle, sparing an opponent from unjust elimination.
Gloria Tinaburri, an endurance rider, pulled out of her own race at the Endurance World Championships in France to help a fellow competitor who had been badly hurt in a fall.
Matteo Pasqualetti, a volleyball player with Virtus Roma, admitted during the Under-13 finals that the ball had grazed his block, a touch the referees had missed, giving up a possible advantage for his team.
Three very different moments, bound by a single idea of sport: one where victory means nothing without fairness and a sense of responsibility towards others. «Through what they did, Alberto, Gloria and Matteo showed extraordinary integrity and generosity», stated Luca Lastrucci, Valeria Speroni Cardi and Filippo Paganelli of the Fair Play Menarini Foundation Board. «The same spirit that drives these three young people has run through the Award for thirty years, in the stories of sport’s undisputed greats».
Fair Play Menarini: from Rome to Florence, celebrating the stars of sport
From Rome the Award heads to Florence, where on 15 June the Fiamme Gialle “Study and Sport” Special Prize goes to student-athletes who excel both in the classroom and in competition.
Then, on 1 July, the traditional gala dinner at Piazzale Michelangelo sets the scene for the grand finale on 2 July. With that, the 30th edition of Fair Play Menarini stays faithful to its own history while looking firmly ahead: on one side the great international champions, on the other the young athletes who are already living proof that a contest is measured not by its outcome alone, but by the choices made when everything is on the line.
Stay up to date on the 30th edition of the Fair Play Menarini International Prize on the dedicated website!
And don’t miss any of the updates on social media either!
