Massimo Di Giorgio

Massimo Di Giorgio (born 22 March 1958) is a former Italian high jumper, who won three medals at senior level at the International athletics competitions.

He finished fifteenth at the 1978 European Indoor Championships, won the gold medal at the 1979 Mediterranean Games and won a bronze medal at the 1983 European Indoor Championships.

In 1980 Massimo Di Giorgio, like other leading Italian athletes (the swimmer Marcello Guarducci, the modern pentathlete Daniele Masala and the judoka Ezio Gamba) who in Moscow in 1980 would have had medal ambitions, could not participate in those Olympic Games because belonged to military bodies.

Ezio Gamba resigned from the military body in time and was able to participate in the Games under the IOC flag, it was not so for the others.

The day when the winners of the Olympic gold medals, Pietro Mennea, Sara Simeoni and Maurizio Damilano were appointed Knights of the Italian Republic by the Italian President Sandro Pertini, Di Giorgio and Guarducci went to protest at the Quirinale because they believed that they too would had to have equal recognition.

His personal best jump is 2.30 metres, achieved in June 1981 in Udine.

Italian athletes serving in its military corps could not attend the Games, however, because of the national government's official support of the boycott.

In 2004, at the age of 46, Massimo di Giorgio decided to propose his candidacy as President of the Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL), he was then defeated by the former Italian middle-distance runner Franco Arese.

Massimo Di Giorgio has won 7 times the individual national championship.