«Steven? He has a predisposition for all gymnastics movements and an incredible desire to get there. I hope he gets into the national team.” Loriana Ferrara has known and trained Steven Matteo, a 20-year-old gymnastics champion from Bari, for five years and she has no doubts about what to say about him. And beyond the words there is the CV, among which stands out, in 2023, the gold in the national general competition, the silver in the national vaulting championship, where she took the gold two years ago. And, again in 2022, we count the gold at the “champions cup” on floor exercise and the silver at the national championship on parallel bars. He is currently a registered athlete for the “Pgf” in the A1 series, the highest gymnastics category.
Steven, how did your passion for artistic gymnastics arise and why did you have to leave Bari?
«As a child I practiced judo and my teacher advised me to try artistic gymnastics, perhaps he had seen some quality in me that I wasn’t aware of. From there I started practicing artistic gymnastics, becoming more passionate about it every day. I competed in competitive competitions right from the start, starting from provincial competitions up to national and international competitions, also wearing the Italy uniform with great emotion. At 14, once the collaborative relationship between the gymnastics club and the coach ended, I expressed to my parents my will and desire to continue this sport. Even though it wasn’t a very easy choice, that of leaving family, school and friends, I moved to Ferrara.”
Who inspires you when you train and compete?
«My great idol when I was a child was Khoei Uchimura, the great Japanese Olympic gymnast. Now at the moment I really like Hashimoto, also an Olympic and Japanese gymnast. But among my memories I have a photo taken many years ago in Bari in which I, as a child, was in the arms of Igor Cassina, Olympic medalist on the barre.”
How does artistic gymnastics training work and can you reconcile it with studying?
«I train both in the morning and in the afternoon, for a total of about six hours a day. We start with the warm-up and various exercises for joint mobility and then we begin the various individual gymnastics tools, studying and trying new exercises for each specialty, which are free body, pommel horse, rings, vaulting, symmetrical parallel bars and barre. I practice all six. At the moment I’m attending university and I’m up to date with my exams.”
In your discipline, what do you think you excel at and what do you think you need to improve on?
«I practice all six tools and each specialty requires a lot of commitment and sacrifice because you always have to try new elements and try to do them as best as possible in order to be competitive. Among the various apparatus, I feel I give the best to the free body, pommel horse and vault, but competing in the all around category (all six apparatus), to be competitive, I have to train a lot on the others too.”
Is it true that you are going to the Olympics in Paris?
“I won’t make the Olympics, my journey is still long and I hope to participate one day.”
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2024-02-14 02:20:52
#judo #climbing #national #artistic #gymnastics #title
