Judo Riccione: for Morgana De Paoli a brilliant bronze in the A2 women’s Italian Cup

On Sunday 24th April the women’s A2 Italian Judo Cup was staged at the Palafijlkam in Ostia. The athlete of the Judo Polisportiva Riccione section, Morgana De Paoli at the age of 17 just a few weeks ago was among the youngest athletes in the competition and certainly did not appear among the favorites to win, despite her palmares in category competitions.

The match from Riccione saw her immediately confronted with a well-known opponent, Klaudia Cannitaro from Cosenza. After a first phase of difficulty, in which De Paoli left too many spaces for the difficult left-handed opponent, Morgana resumed the reins of the match and a few seconds from the end she managed to mark wazari (half a point) concluding with an immobilization technique that it was projected to the quarter-finals with the first of the ranking, the expert Roman athlete Valentina Mieli. The latter immediately proved to be up to her primacy, imposing her judo on her young Riccione who had to give way to her undergoing a double wazari. In the final for the third place, Morgana then faced the Venetian Erika Taffarel, against whom she managed an excellent match both technically and tactically that allowed her to conquer the seventh medal in a national final out of seven participations and the promotion to the Cup. Italy A1.

“Morgana is a record-breaking athlete – explains Maestro Longo – as well as being a model student of the Karis high school. Fighting between the Seniors is something else entirely: even if among the Cadets she has always shown her superiority, the comparison with much more experienced and physically more mature athletes was a bet. This was a race in which we had to test ourselves in anticipation of the European Cup in Coimbra at the end of May, also because the athletes competing were all very strong and with important international experiences. In particular, the second classified in the category was Carolina Costa, a visually impaired athlete who at the Tokyo Paralympics won a historic bronze, as it was the first Paralympic medal in Italian judo. On May 15th it is expected to participate in the final of the Italian Under 21 Championships, where Morgana will present herself as reigning vice champion, a fundamental step to hope for the call-up to the Under 18 European Championship. I just have to say to everyone: cheer for us ! “.