Mirco Scarantino won his ninth European title and secured yet another gold medal for the Sicilian town that can justifiably claim to be the weightlifting capital of the world. Scarantino, 22, whose next target is the podium at the World Championships in Anaheim, California in six weeks, is from an illustrious weightlifting family and an even more illustrious town, Caltanisetta.

He joined the Italian police and lives in Rome now but his every move is followed back in Caltanisetta, a town of 60,000 that has produced more than 450 national champions, eight Olympians and a series of international medallists. "Everybody in the town follows weightlifting - there is nowhere else in the world like it," said Antonio Urso, President of the European Weightlifting Federation and another who originates from Caltanisetta.