In 2024 Luca Ceribelli won the Pokémon World Championship. In recent days he was supposed to participate in the races for this year’s Championship in San Francisco. However, his pass to access the event was withdrawn, effectively preventing him from participating in the competition.
Italy boasts one decent series of successes at the Pokémon Championships. The Italian contingent is always crowded, their names appear among the top positions in the rankings and sometimes they even win the World Championshipusually dominated by United States and Japan. It happened in 2013with Arash Ommati. And it happened again in 2024 with Luca Ceribelli. Here you can find his interview with Fanpage.it after the victory. Both won in tournament dedicated to video gameswhere each coach presents himself with one Pokémon team to make them fight in doubles. It’s like a game of chess: Each Pokémon has specific moves, vulnerabilities, and strengths. Then there are others two categories: one dedicated to card games, at least those that don’t end up in the collecting world. And one dedicated to Pokémon Go, the video game that became a sensation in the summer of 2016. To win you need a lot of strategy. Ceribelli also qualified for this year’s World Championships in San Francisco. In the end, however, he did not participate, just as two other Italians did not participate: Ruben Gianzini And Luca Lussignoli.
The problem is not the scores. The three Italians saw each other withdraw the pass due to a problem related to the queue. For now we have Ceribelli’s version: “Due to unfortunate circumstances, two of my friends and I will not be able to participate in the Pokémon World Championships.” Ceribelli, 23, was at the tail end of the Pokémon Centerone of the brand’s official stores. He was in line with Luca Lussignoli. The two decide to welcome in the queue Reubenarrived later. A gesture that is not appreciated by security: they therefore decide to withdraw their passes. However, speaking with security, Ceribelli and the others are reassured: the withdrawal of the pass only serves to prevent them from accessing the Pokémon Center, they will then be able to reprint them to enter the races.
But things they don’t move that way: “Not wanting to cause problems and sharing the decision not to let us in, we agreed, but apparently the passes collected by the staff cannot be reissued, effectively transforming the decision into a ban on participation in the event.” A decision that led Luca to reconsider the choice to compete again: “This situation seems so absurd that it clearly seems like I’m not telling the whole story, but I hope you believe me when I say that this is all there is. This year has been extremely difficult for me emotionally, and since I haven’t been able to participate in tournaments for 8 months, I’ve been looking forward to the Worlds experience again, so to be denied it in such an unfair situation is nothing short of devastating.”
Andrea, the collection of telephone cards: “For just one they offered 3,500 euros. I have a prototype from the Vatican”
At the moment no official positions have been received The Pokémon Companythe Japanese company that manages the brand and the entire Pokémon franchise. The tournament was ultimately won by the Japanese Takuma Yamazaki. However, there are two Italians in the Top 8, in seventh and eighth place: Stefano Greppi And Giovanni Piscitelli.
