Bruna Colombetti-Peroncini

Granddaughter of the great fencing master Luigi Colombetti, Bruna Colombetti-Peroncini was a student of the top Milanese school of Giuseppe Mangiarotti at the Società del Giardino, of which she became a leading figure.

A very young foil fencer, the only weapon allowed to women at the time, 17-year-old Colombetti-Peroncini won a team bronze medal at the 1953 World Championship in Brussels. She followed that with a team silver in 1954 and team bronze and individual silver a year later in Roma. At the 1957 Worlds in Paris Colombetti-Peroncini won gold with the Italian women’s team and collected three more bronze medals in 1962-63 and 1965. Domestically she won three individual titles, in 1955 and 1958-59. She participated in the four Olympics, from Melbourne 1956 to Mexico City 1968, with a team bronze at Roma 1960 being her best result.

In June 1971 Colombetti-Peroncini was awarded the title of Fencing Master by the National Fencing Academy and she became the first teacher and coach of her nephew Alfredo Rota. She also worked as a secretary at CONI (the Italian Olympic Committee), and as a fencing teacher and coach at the CONI headquarters in Milano. Colombetti-Peroncini died at the age of 72 in her hometown of Milano a few days before the start of the Beijing Olympics, from which Alfredo Rota took home a bronze medal.