Kidsfrom all over the world together in Matera. For a week the city of Sassi will be the capital of sport and youth: from the next 22nd to 28th June, in fact, it will host the 22nd edition of the international tournament “MinibasketInPiazza”, organized by the amateur sports club Pielle Matera and reserved for  kids born in the years 2003 and 2004.

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The 2013’s final at Piazza Vittorio Veneto

The event has grown a lot since the first edition of 1993: then it was attended by only 16 teams, all Italian (mostly Basilicata and Puglia), that gradually increased in number and provenance. This year it will be 56, representing 10 countries and 3 continents: Jordan, Estonia, Nigeria, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Lebanon and Montenegro, the significant representative of Palestine, and of course Italy, represented by 13 regions (Lucania, Puglia, Marche, Veneto, Friuli, Campania, Calabria, Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Abruzzo, Tuscany, Sicily and Sardinia).

So ten and eleven years old boys and girls will animate for a week the squares of Matera and its territory, with the involvement of Metaponto, Bernalda, Policoro, Nova Siri and locations of Puglia like Santeramo, Laterza, Corato, Bitritto, Monopoli, Cassano, Toritto, and Bitonto: a week full of sports and entertainment, but also brotherhood and solidarity. Numerous side events planned: games, tours and live shows, with the usual visit to the Chariot of Bruna and the spectacular parade through the streets that Sunday will inaugurate the event and end at the Municipal Park John Paul II with the official presentation . Saturday 28 then the final in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, which will conclude an event that over the years has always promoted basketball and our territory in the same time, between sport and tourism: a combination that around here seems to find its perfect natural habitat.