Paola Paggi

Paola Paggi was on the Italian volleyball squad at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the first Italian women’s team to compete at the Olympics. The climax of her international career was the title won at the 2002 FIVB Women’s World Championships in Germany, where her team, coached by Marco Bonitta, defeated the United States 3-2 in the final on 15 September. In this tournament, Paggi only played in the first match in the first phase against Japan (3-0). With the Azzurra shirt she won the 2001 Mediterranean Games and took part at her second Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.

Domestically Paggi was in the First League from the 1996-97 season with Vicenza, with whom she won the Italian SuperCup and the CEV Cup in 2002. She then joined Bergamo where, from 2002 to 2007, she won two Italian titles, two Champions League titles, one Italian Cup and one SuperCup. In the 2007-08 season she moved to Asystel Novara, where she became captain and won the CEV Cup in 2009. From 2010 to 2018 she played with Modena, Soverato, Forlì and, in her last competitive years, with Bergamo again, where in 2016, at 39-years-old, she won another Italian cup. In 2002 she was a recipient of the title of Knight of the Italy’s Republic and, in 2004, of the Collare d’Oro for sporting merits.