by Gino Gianmarco Stefanel
Our Master, and founder, Stefano Stefanel became eighth dan. The prestigious recognition was awarded to him by the President of FIJLKAM Giovanni Morsiani and the President of the judo sector Giuseppe Matera last Saturday 13 December, at the Federal Center in Ostia at the end of an exam session of the National School, of which Stefano has been President of the Management Committee since last March. This is the highest rank achieved by a Kuroki Judo member, as well as the highest currently present in the region, equaling the dan of Laura di Toma, a Kurokian in the first years after the birth of the society and currently resident in Emilia-Romagna, and it is the culmination of a life inextricably linked to judo.
Stefano was enrolled in judo by his parents Angelo and Mariolina at the age of 10, in 1966. His first teacher was Paolo Canellotto, then a brown belt, and his first company was Yama Arashi of Udine. In 1969 he came third in his first national final, held at the Palasport dell’Eur in Rome. In 1969, Minoru Kuroki arrived in Udine from Turin, the first of a series of Japanese masters with whom Stefano had to deal, but the one who marked him the most, so much so that he dedicated the name of the company he founded to him years later. With Kuroki in 1970 he moved to Tenri Udine, to which he remained linked until 1975. In those years Tenri was under the guidance of maestro Katsuyoshi Takata, a figure who would become internationally famous, assisted for periods by Takearo Tsuchiyama, Shozo Oyama and Kiyomi Nagamoto. In 1976 and 1977 he was a member of the Triestina Gymnastics Society and from 1978 for the Judokai University of Tenri of Codroipo of maestro Piero Comino. He obtained his first dan in 1980 and the following year he founded Judo Kuroki, of which he was also president from 1984 to 1992. From the same year, until 2016, he was Federal Councilor of the national federation for seven terms. There were many roles held for FIJLKAM (or its previous names), of which we mention only the main ones: sole manager of the kata (leading the national team to be the first after Japan for years) and master, president of the youth commission and of the promotional activities commission, teaching teacher of youth activities for the national school. He has also held various regional positions and is a Coni Bronze Star and FIJLKAM Star of Merit.
As an athlete he fought in around 400 competitions, although at the beginning there were no more than three or four per year, continuing to compete, when possible, until an advanced age, still giving priority to the roles of technician and manager. In addition to having had Japanese masters, he also visited Japan and the figures of Toyokazu Nomura and Hiroshi Minatoya had a great influence on him.
As a coach he led Judo Kuroki, based in Tarcento, a small town of less than 10 thousand inhabitants, to be one of the first clubs in Italy, the only one to have taken part in all the Italian men’s team championships, with athletes who over the course of more than forty years of history have won Italian titles, European and world medals. But, beyond the results, with Kuroki he managed to build a community that makes people feel part of a family, as was also highlighted by the EJU delegate who on the occasion of the last Tarcento Trophy – European Cup in Lignano Sabbiadoro complimented the spirit of all the volunteers. Another intuition of Stefano was to invest heavily in the organization of competitions and events and to build a team with increasingly developed skills in this sense.
Outside the judo field he was a middle school teacher, mayor of Pasian di Prato, school director and now, who is supposedly retired, he is, among other things, a member of the Board of Directors of the University of Udine and a grandfather.
A deserved recognition for an eclectic person who has given and continues to give a lot to judo.
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