While following results on competitions in Italy on the site atleticalive.it, I ran accross a reference to "Athletica Vaticana". I was intrigued and I tried to find more about this.
It turned out that in 2017 the Pontifical Council for Culture gave patronage to Athletica Vaticana. The members of the latter are Vatican citizens or employees. In 2019, Athletica Vaticana received recognition as the first official Vatican sports association.
As Pope Francis himself stated in an interview at the Gazzetta dello Sport, "the athletics team in Vatican is a testimony of the evangelical nature of sport. It is also a way to create a community. One has just to think about the members of the team who come from the various administrations: swiss guards, gardeners, pharmacists, museum employees and also priests. So the Church is reaching out to the stadia".
Athletica Vaticana is already member of the sports community of the Small Countries of Europe (consisting of countries with less than a million citizens). It is affiliated to the Italian Olympic Committee. I don't know if this can lead to the Vatican joining the IOC. I have checked and the Vatican does not figure, yet, among the 206 countries that are currently members of the IOC. But it would be interesting to see the Vatican in the Olympics.
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