Sunday 18th September the second part of the competitive season has officially restarted for judo section of the Polisportiva Riccione.
After the summer successes with the athlete Morgan De Paoli who won bronze at the EYOF (a sort of European Youth Olympics) and participation in the Under-17 World Cup, we start again with the young promise from Riccione Sofia Longoto his first participation in an Italy Trophynational circuit race for the class under 15.
Sofia, still 12, returns to the race after about ten months of hiatus forced due to a minor health problem that did not allow him to train with loads on his legs. The young judoka, thanks to the collaboration with water polo section of the same Polisportivawas able to continue training in the exhaust, also becoming passionate about this other wonderful discipline.
The woman from Riccione then resumed judo training only last July and gradually increased her pace and participated throughout the summer in numerous internships and retreats, without ever giving up water polo training. Thanks to this, Sofia showed up at her first Italian Trophy in excellent physical and technical shape.
After having easily overcome the first meeting scoring two wazari (half a point), the Riccione faced the good Friulian in the quarter-finals Rachele Moruzzifirst in the ranking list and winner of the Italian Trophy in Riccione and Lombardia, losing at the end of the three minutes of regulation only by a wazari.
The Romagna was able to access the repechage matches with the possibility of being able to qualify for the final for the bronze, against the Lazio Rachel Ciavurro. The two girls staged a beautiful meeting. Sofia after falling behind wazari, managed to even the score thanks to a spectacular action of yoko tomoe nage. The match ended a few seconds before the end of regular time with another wazari from Lazio who marked the end of the race for the Riccione athlete, relegating her to the 7th place in the standings.
“For Sofia it was an excellent test. Unfortunately the medal did not arrive but it does not matter. She managed to measure up with two of the strongest athletes in the category and we were able to test the work done all summer. We are ready to leave again for the next Italian Trophies which will be in Olbia, as early as next weekend, and in Pescara in mid-October – explains the DT of the Judo section, Giuseppe Longofather of the very young athlete -. Following an athlete in competition is always exciting, but when this athlete is your daughter, the tension skyrockets. Before the start of the race all my fears of disappointing her expectations and of having missed the preparation came out. From her I perceived similar feelings, she too was afraid of disappointing me. We had to be the ones to open the event with the first meeting. The tension grew during the Mameli anthem, then the minute of silence in memory of the victims of the flood in the Marche and finally the referee’s hajmè (the go-ahead) dissolved all doubts and made us experience a mix of emotions. : joy, determination, desire to win and the tears of defeat that in the end gave us the certainty that we are a good team and that Sofia, thanks to her passion and her gym mates who are accompanying her in this adventure, will be able to aspire to better results”.
