Irma Testa flies to the eternal Olympus of the great legends of Italian sport, graduating World Champion in the 57 kg category in the ring in New Delhi (India). The renamed Butterfly conquered an astonishing success gold medal, in a weight category that will also be present at the Paris 2024 Olympics after it was tinged with bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
The champion from Campania has been able to improve after last year he had to settle for silver and expands his bulletin board, which also includes two European titles (the last won a few months ago). The 25-year-old consecrates herself as one of the most crystalline talents of the Italian movement short and manages to have Mameli’s anthem played at the women’s boxing world championship seven years after the last joy: in 2016 it was Alessia Mesiano, also among the featherweights, who celebrated in Astana.
Irma Testa defeated Kazakh Karina Ibragimova by unanimous verdict (5-0: four 30-27, one 29-28), having the better of a mangy opponent, technically solid, equipped with powerful shots and who in the semifinal had beaten the Taiwanese Lin Yu Ting, or the Champion of the outgoing World (last year he prevailed over our bearer in the final). This is the triumph of an authentic predestined, already capable of putting silver on her neck at the Youth Olympics in 2014 and the first (and only) Italian to get on the podium at the Games.
The native of Torre Annunziata can look to the near future with great optimism: there is just over a year left for Paris 2024 and he will show up in the French capital with the aim of completing the Grand Slam. The first passes for the five-circle competition will be up for grabs this summer on the occasion of the second edition of the European Games, an event in which our standard-bearer will once again try to lay down the law and continue her streak of successes.
THE CHRONICLE OF THE MATCH
In the first round Ibragimova shows up with a nice left and a violent right accompanied by a couple of good jabs, but Testa responds with an interesting left-right combination. Five judges prefer the style of our standard bearer, perhaps not in her best form but capable of stemming the Kazakh’s ardor and power. The bell tries to sting with the left hook at the start of the second round, but Ibragimova scores with her right and places some remarkable combinations, insisting on the blue’s face. The score of the second round is not communicated and in the last three minutes a situation of total uncertainty is entered: Ibragimova’s right-left-right, who then insists convincingly on Testa’s face, perhaps in a bit of physical trouble . Delicate and uncertain situation, but the judges agree and assign a landslide victory with unanimous verdict to Irma Testa.
Photo: FPI
