Italian athletes serving in its military corps could not attend the Games, however, because of the national government's official support of the boycott.[5] 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.
