Italian skipper Franco Cavallo achieved the highlight of his sailing career in Acapulco Bay in 1968, winning the Olympic bronze medal in the Star class with bowman Camillo Gargano. Cavallo was a multiple European champion, especially in the Lightning class, which he won four times in 1954 and 1958-60. He practiced this class in his youth as a member of the Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia club. Although he was a man of few words, he was determined, and became a role model for generations of Napoli sailors. Cavallo won the Star class bronze medal at the 1962 Europeans in Cascais (Portugal), and with Gargano finished a respectable fifth and seventh in 1967 and 1968 respectively. At the Worlds, Cavallo’s best result was ninth place at Kiel in 1966.
A sales representative by profession, Cavallo became a Knight of the Order of Merit of the Republic in 1969 as a result of his exploits in Mexico the previous year. The boat Cavallo used at the Olympics, Romance, was built in 1966 by the Old Greenwich Boat Co. of Stanford (USA), and is displayed at the Club Italia in Napoli with a commemorative plate.
Italy