Marco Montelatici

Marco Montelatici was an Italian shot putter. He began at the club Assi Giglio Rosso of Firenze where he had the same coach (Bruno Betti) as the Olympian Silvano Meconi and, in his first year in the youth category, he set the Italian age-group record.

Montelatici was a worker at the municipal slaughterhouse, and had difficulty finding time for training and was eventually dismissed from work. In the later 1970s he competed at two European indoor championships with a ninth place in 1977 and seventh in 1978. In the following years, in spite of injuries, he competed at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and set his personal best of 20.90 m at the 1985 Pasqua dell’Atleta meeting. He set his first Italian record at Firenze on 11 July 1976 with 19.21 m and increased the mark until he recorded 20.13 on 6 August 1978 at Venezia, equaled two years later by Bruno Pauletto.

Montelatici’s best international moment was when he won the bronze medal at the 1986 European Indoors with 20.11 behind the Swiss Werner Gunthor and the Soviet Sergey Smirnov. Montelatici earned 59 international caps, won five Italian outdoor titles (1976-77, 1982, 1987-88), and five indoor (1973, 1977-78, 1984, 1986).

Personal Best: SP – 20.90 (1985).