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Dueling gondoliers spice up historic Venice regatta

Venice's traditional Regata Storica festival, staged on Sunday, showed that passions still run high in the lagoon city, as dueling gondoliers rammed each other in the day's top race, one disgruntled competitor hurled flags in the Grand Canal and the mayor was escorted off the winning podium by police after a near brawl.

The event, which has been staged annually since the 12th century, got under way in fine style, as an opening procession of antique vessels carrying locals in historical costume passed before crowds of tourists and dignitaries, including the mayor, Massimo Cacciari.

Pageantry, however, soon turned to fury during the climactic race of the gondolini -- 10m long, slimmed down gondolas with two oarsmen that speed past St Mark's Square and up the Grand Canal -- as the Vignotto cousins, Igor and Rudi, quickly established a joint lead with Giampaolo D'Este and Ivo Redolfi Tezzat, all Venice gondoliers and fierce rivals in the regatta for the past 15 years.

Wildly slung oars

After a series of blocks, wildly swung oars and at least three collisions, D'Este and Tezzat took a narrow lead to win, only for Igor Vignotto to storm up behind them on to the winning podium, hurl the winners' flags into the water and accuse the mayor of allowing D'Este to compete despite a pending disqualification for ramming in earlier regattas, which D'Este has appealed.

"D'Este went crying twice to the mayor to get himself admitted to the race," Vignotto reportedly yelled.

"You cannot doubt my word on this," replied Cacciari, 63, a former communist and philosophy professor known for his hot temper, as he squared up to Vignotto before city council staff and police pulled the two apart.

Silvio Testa, a Venetian writer and journalist, said he was grateful to see sparks fly.

Blame the rules

"It's not the violence that spoils the regatta, but the rules they have been adding for the past 30 years which set the gondoliers against each other," he said. "This is not Henley. Rivalry and physical contact have always been a part of it."

The event marked the second time this year that violent rivalry has taken the spotlight at traditional, pageantry-fuelled sporting events in Italy. In April, Florence city officials handed out a one-year ban to the Calcio Storico tournament, a mixture of soccer and bare-knuckle fighting controlled by referees dressed in velvet jackets and pantaloons.

Contested by neighborhood teams in Piazza Santa Croce for centuries, the event had been suspended in last year after a huge brawl that saw 50 players taken to court.
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