Judo, Dima stops at the foot of the podium, fifth place for the Polisportiva Riccione athlete

The athlete of Ukrainian origin Dmytro Halich, under the judo section of Polisportiva Riccione, stops at the foot of the podium, with a 5th place (which in judo is equivalent to fourth) and just one step away from the black belt he would have won if he had won that last fight.

Dima, as his gym mates call him, showed up in Ostia strong with the A2 title won a few weeks ago in Taranto and a period of very intense training, which passed from the Piancavallo internship during the summer holidays and the regional and inter-provincial training sessions organized in Bologna , Imola, Riccione and Longiano.

The athlete from Romagna was followed in the race by the technician of the Parma Center and the Federal Technical Center Gianluca Valeriani, coordinated with the DT of the judo section of the Polisportiva Riccione Maestro Giuseppe Longo, who due to family needs was unable to drive his valuable athlete.

First meeting, first hold by the opponent (Salvatore Mazzola from Palermo, already medalist at last year’s Italian Championships and number 3 on the national ranking list), first action and the match ends in a few seconds with a catastrophic ippon against Dima, who he was taken by surprise. Fortunately Mazzola is an athlete of extreme value and conquering the semifinal allows the rider from Romagna to continue the race, even if only with the possibility of winning the bronze medal. Dima then faces the Apulian Braccioforte Giuseppe in the first match of the recoveries. The match seems balanced, when following a poorly controlled attack, the Riccione first blocks the opponent on the ground with an immobilization technique and then, when he realizes he is unable to control him, he quickly passes to an effective suffocation technique. forcing the opponent to surrender. In the third match he has to face Avanzi Edoardo, judoka from Lodi, against whom Dima scores two Wazari (half a point which added up equals Ippon, i.e. the ko of judo), accessing the final for the bronze against the Neapolitan Colombai Adriano. Against the latter, the Polisportiva athlete was unable to express himself at his best and despite not conceding any points, the match ended against him due to the sum of yellow cards.

“We have nothing to complain about. The minimum result we set ourselves was a final. We also knew that Dima could have reached the podium but that the road would have been very difficult. However, this is a huge result in a very competitive category. Among the boys on the podium there is the first in the world ranking and two who have conquered podiums in international competitions. Furthermore Dima, among the athletes who fought in a final, was the youngest and given his competitive growth in the last year we are proud and happy with the result, aware that by continuing like this we can only improve. I would like to thank our athlete’s parents who follow him and help us in the gym also with the other guys in the group and Maestro Valeriani who guided Dima as if he were his athlete, interacting with me who followed the race from home due to urgent family needs. ” says the master longo.