With the publication of the final rankings of the municipalities participating in the “Sport in the Parks” Project – launched in 2020 by Sport e Salute in collaboration with ANCI – and the call for tenders for the supply and installation of equipment for sports and body activities in more than 300 urban parks in relation to the aforementioned Project, the consolidation of the objectives – set out in the preamble to the Project itself – of promoting new models of outdoor sports practice, with particular regard to the use of urban green areas, is outlined.

The “free exercise” activity has long emerged outside the body-building gyms and dusty school gyms where poles and wall bars often lie unused.

The race for open-air fitness or calisthenics facilities, variously named by the various public administrators, has accelerated with the restrictions due to the pandemic, which have amplified the desire to move, and to do so outdoors: municipalities can thus offer the opportunity to do sport with a limited investment. And now, with the initiative by Sport e Salute, municipalities that until now had not the opportunity to do so are being given this opportunity.

We have already seen, in previous reports, integrated projects where the space available is organised to meet the needs of different age groups – from games for children to fitness to team games -, but even the small stage of an area equipped with step aerobics, workouts, bars within urban green areas (the project in question envisages a minimum of 200 square metres) is an incentive to healthy muscular activity, an evolution of what was the first elementary “fitness trail”.

Yes, let’s remember that our parks often retain the vestiges of old wooden fitness trails that are no longer usable due to neglect or vandalism; and we would like to take this opportunity to emphasise – as we do on every project occasion – that the “supply and installation” does not complete the task for the user: the care and maintenance of the equipment will be essential so that the system created by “sport in the parks” does not soon become an archaeological park of enamelled and painted (as per the technical specifications) steel poles.