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Thursday, August 21st, 2008
The Palio of the Assumption took place on the 16th of August in Siena’s Piazza del Campo as it does every year, but this particular edition truly showed its ancient, exciting roots more so than past races.
It all began with the traditional Sienese way of sorting out who had the best chances of winning and this race saw a serious factor to be considered: “4 greens” would be racing on the piazza that day (contrade with green in their flags) and this is believed to be a portent of something unpleasant to come.
To start off, the weather was so unpleasant that it impeded not one but two trial runs. This also made it necessary to lay down another layer of tuff on the piazza almost as the drums were starting to beat.