Marcon

Marcon has almost doubled its population in three decades — from 10,551 inhabitants in 1991 to 17,708 at the end of 2024 — a leap that has transformed it from a Veneto farming village into a residential and logistics town at the gates of the lagoon, between Mestre and the Treviso hinterland. Against that urban expansion, Marcon keeps a natural counterweight in the Cave di Gaggio, former clay quarries turned into a protected oasis: an area of about 13 hectares managed by the LIPU since 1985 which, together with the adjoining ponds, forms a wetland of about 65 hectares integrated into the European Natura 2000 network.

In sporting terms, the hub is the municipal Palazzetto dello Sport on Via dello Sport, home of Marcon Basket and the Polisportiva Marcon. Athletics has long roots: A.S.D. Atletica Marcon was founded in 1972 and is affiliated to FIDAL. Local football and volleyball are organised in Calcio Marcon 24 and New Volley Marcon, both registered in the national CONI register. The discipline that gives Marcon international projection is skating: every autumn the town hosts the International Venice Skate Trophy, which in its 2023 edition brought together 647 skaters from 35 clubs from Italy, Estonia, Bulgaria, Denmark and the United States.

Marcon holds the title of European Town of Sport 2023 (Comune Europeo dello Sport), awarded by ACES Europe and confirmed both on the aceseurope.eu list and by the Italian delegation ACES Italia. The recognition, reserved for municipalities of fewer than 25,000 inhabitants, places Marcon in one of the ACES network's largest national representations and alongside other Veneto towns distinguished in the same 2023 cohort, such as Spinea or Schio. The title certifies municipal sports policy as an instrument of cohesion and public health.