And that day – after the gold medal – Giulia Quintavalle joked about it and said: «From today call me Primavalle». Blue colored tatami. On the highest podium, gold in the 57 kg judo category, the first woman in the history of Italian sport, after beating the fearsome Dutch Deborah Gravenstijn. It’s August 11, 2008, Giulia is a young woman from Livorno from Rosignano Marittimo – she cares a lot about her town and mentions it whenever she can – she is twenty-five years old. The gesture with which she celebrates every victory remains in the memory of Italians: she raises her hand to her ear and waves it, as if to say: “I don’t know if you understood what I just did.” Giulia copied it from the national team’s center forward Luca Toni, who two years earlier – in Berlin – contributed to Italy’s victory in the World Cup. Her best friend, Antonia, asked her to replicate her celebration. And so it was.
But the face of Giulia Quintavalle is unknown to most. Judo, like many other disciplines, only comes into the limelight every four years, when the Olympics are held. The city of triumph is Beijing. Giulia has sweet eyes, an intense gaze, a lean body that seems to be made of wire, a natural aptitude for elegance in her proud bearing. Her story – at least until that magical day in Beijing – tells of an uncommon tenacity and of many goals that were just missed. She started judo at the age of four, thanks to her mother, who signed her up for a children’s course at the gym without telling her. For years Giulia Quintavalle was the one who always came in second, behind the best, both in Italy and in various competitions abroad. It’s hard to shake off the label of «successful loser». She did it. With stubbornness, going down in category – from 63 to 57 kg. – And relying on the expertise of master Felice Mariani, a monument of Italian judo given that he was the first Italian to stand on the podium at the 1976 Montreal Games.
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What the girls (shy like her) don’t say is that behind every gold medal there is daily effort, the search for inner balance, the management of moments of exaltation (few) and those where the whole world it seems to slip out of our hands. That day – August 11, 2008 – remains the most beautiful of his life.. In the following years the Fiamme Gialle athlete – he is stationed at the Infernetto in Rome, near Ostia where he trains – wins another title that was missing from the Italian team’s palmares, winning the European Team Championships with: Rosalba Forciniti, Edwige Gwend , Erica Barbieri, Assunta Galeone and subsequently won three international tournaments in Lisbon, Rome and Abu Dhabi. In 2012 she took part in the London Olympics, but failed to get on the podium. Last year Giulia Quintavalle entered the CONI Walk of Fame, she returned to live in her country of origin, she is married to the former judoka Orazio D’Allura and she is the mother of Leonardo and Zoe. And when she remembers that day she says that «Reality surpassed even the dream». Quintavalle for a lifetime, Primavalle for just one day, but unforgettable.
The original article Olympics Stories: Giulia Quintavalle, the first woman in judo in Italy you can find it at the following Link
2024-06-30 04:47:53
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