Wazari di okuri ashi barai: this is the name of the move that in judo technique knocks out the opponent. It is the sweep at the two feet of the Uzbek Keldiyorova with which the Italian Odette Giuffrida swept away anxieties and tremors, broke the balance of a final dangerously in the balance after a penalty that was later cancelled, broke a tricolor fast that had lasted for 33 years, but which above all gave her the world championship gold, celebrated with a scream and tears on the podium in Abu Dhabi, where the World Championships are taking place which in the meantime also gave Italy a silver (and the Olympic pass), at the neck of the 22 year old Assunta Scutto in the 48 kg category.
Odette Giuffrida climbed to the top step of the podium in the 52 kg category, where Italy’s women’s judo had been missing since 1991, when in Barcelona Alessandra Giungi and Emanuela Pierantozzi brought two gold medals. There, on the top step of the podium, with a special thought of the Lord, “because it is he who gives me joy and the desire to fight”, said the “judoka of God”, as she is nicknamed for her profound faith religious.
There on the top step of the podium, accompanied «by an indescribable emotion: the anthem with the gold around the neck cannot be told in words», looking down on the number two in the world ranking defeated in the final, and then the Frenchwoman Buchard and the German Ballhaus, all opponents who she will meet again in less than two months in Paris, when she will compete for Olympic gold on the tatami.
Gold at an Olympics: it is the last goal that is still missing in the career of the twenty-nine year old Roman who competes for the Army, who on the tatami has earned the nickname “Poison” and who, after receiving compliments from the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni («extraordinary
Odette”), made her say: «This gold medal is already behind us, in Paris it will be a completely different story, and I will go there with the strength and hope of making it thanks to work».
That Olympic gold that he only came close to, bronze arrived in Rio in 2016 and three years ago in Tokyo the medal instead took on the color and (bitter) aftertaste of silver. A great achievement in any case, given that in 2017 they had already given it up as finished: a bad knee, shoulders in pieces. Instead, she was resurrected and reborn, thanks also to a surgery that put her back on her feet, on the tatami, to train and win. Stronger and more determined than ever. Continental gold in 2020, silver in 2021 together with the Olympic one, world championship bronze last year and now, finally, gold at the World Championship. All she has left to win is gold at the Games: she arrives in Paris as number two in the Olympic ranking, but she is determined to turn it into number one. Appointment in Paris, where the swan Odette dreams of bathing in gold.
2024-05-21 08:17:25
#Odette #Giuffrida #Gods #judoka #chasing #gold #Games
