by Giusy Taglia
He is 38 years old, the call as technical director of the yellow-blue national team came in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. «Today we have 130 refugee athletes, scattered across Europe. Is it worth it? This sport is their reason for living.”
Since December 2020 he has been the technical director of the Ukrainian national badminton team. Luca Crippa, 38 years old, born in Monza, raised in Sesto San Giovanni, resident in Cinisello Balsamo for a few years. When he can stop to follow the athletes, trained by his wife Gloria Pirvanescu, he is forced to live with his suitcase packed, looking for hospitality in some country that has suitable facilities for training and where the two Ukrainian girls he follows, Yevheniia Kantemyr and Polina Buhrova, can enter without difficulty, given their origins.
How did your passion for badminton, an Olympic but still little-known sport, arise?
«I was 16 years old, it was my uncle who involved me; after a few years as an athlete I dedicated myself to being a manager with the Milan club, one of the most important clubs in Italy which can boast something like seven championships and three bronze medals in the European Cup. In 2018 he called me the European Badminton Confederation which is based in Copenhagen. My role was to create relationships between the different federations.”
How did he get to the Ukrainian federation?
«At the end of 2020. When the Covid epidemic broke out, by pure chance, I was not in Denmark but I had gone to visit my future wife in Cyprus because she coached the Cypriot national team. I was stuck there, thankfully, with her. Returning to Denmark was complicated and even more so having to think about commuting again with all the travel limitations. I decided to leave the position, and at the end of 2020 I was contacted by the Ukrainian Federation who asked me to organize the entire national badminton movement. I accepted, in unsuspecting times, and my future wife accompanied me: she was the coach and I was the technical director, the headquarters were in Kiev”.
At the outbreak of the war, were you in the Ukrainian capital?
«Actually no, here too by pure chance: we had returned to Italy to sign the marriage banns in Cinisello Balsamo, on 17 February 2022, a week later the war would break out. We were never able to return.”
But did the work continue?
«Of course, in fact it was very important: we relocated around 130 athletes and ten coaches with their families around Europe. Fortunately for him, someone was already outside Ukraine for international tournaments.”
Where do you train?
«We are always looking for a place to train, the ideal would be to have a safer base, like the PalaBadminton in Milan which can count on six courts, but unfortunately we were unable to reach an agreement with the Italian federation».
Why invest energy in badminton when there is a war going on?
«Because for them badminton becomes the reason for life, for redemption: Yevheniia is 18 years old, Polina is 19, their mothers are far away, one in Lithuania and the other in Slovakia, their fathers in Ukraine because men cannot leave the country. They often have to share the same bed, they live their best years always with a suitcase in hand and far from their family, there is no shortage of crises, but badminton is truly vital for them. Everything they can earn from winning tournaments they have to invest to survive, to do the shopping, for rent. We receive some contributions from the Ukrainian federation, but it is really minimal.”
You and your wife, on the other hand, why do you do it?
«Because it’s always worth it. We both love badminton. Paradoxically, for a coach, having athletes like Yevheniia and Polina is the best you could wish for: because they dedicate themselves body and soul.”
What’s in the future?
«Our future is short term. Of course, this is the year of the Olympics. But if 150 missiles fall on Kiev tomorrow, if the war takes an unexpected turn, it will all end.”
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January 8, 2024 (modified January 8, 2024 | 09:18)
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2024-01-08 08:44:05
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