Good morning Manuel, introduce yourself! Name, surname, weight category and major sporting successes.
“I am Manuel Lombardo, judoka of the Italian national team, European champion in Lisbon 2021 and vice-world champion in Budapest in 2021 and in Doha in 2023”.
- Your first memory of the word Olympics, when you were a boy, and what it means to you today.
“First memory: dream. I have been doing this sport for many years, it seems like yesterday, but it has already been 23 years and the dream has slowly become a goal. Today it is a bad memory, which has become a goal again and now that Paris is just around the corner I hope it becomes redemption”.
- You have already experienced the Olympics and also because of the pandemic the memory is not the best, but how do you imagine this could be in Paris?
“Tokyo is a complex memory in my head, a mix of a thousand things, a thousand shades and I think I can divide my career into two parts, from when I started doing judo until Tokyo and the other, after Tokyo. It was, unfortunately, the lowest point of my career, despite the fact that I achieved the greatest successes in that year. But it is precisely this aspect that makes the Olympics special, the atypicality compared to all the other competitions, including the European and World Championships. Paris today is a competition that excites me and I hope that this second part of my career will allow me to fulfill myself as a judoka”.
- Imagine today is race day, what are the things you do and how do you do them?
“If today is the day of my competition, so July 29th, the first thing I would do in the morning when I wake up is ask myself if I did everything right. I’m working hard to get to the best version I can be and so I hope to answer yes to this question. This would bring me peace of mind, regardless of the outcome of the day; so, I would focus on what needs to be done well. Then I use music as a tool to get me going, it’s the element that gives me chills before stepping on the mat and sometimes it also gives you that anxiety that can be good. So together with the technical and physical preparation on the mat, I also look for my right playlist for the competition, and I will focus on all these little things, nutrition, the emotion that I will try to find in music and then, when I step on the mat, I will do judo like I do every day”.
- What is Manuel’s goal?
“A proud Manuel would answer you: Olympic champion. For all athletes the goal is to win, but in Tokyo I learned what it means to stop at the foot of the podium and as far as I’m concerned, it hurt much more than losing in the first match. My goal, what I’m doing, is to train to win gold… but they say: aim for the stars and in the worst case scenario you’ll land on the moon. Something like that, so the goal is Olympic champion, but I truly appreciate the value of that medal, which is the only medal I’m missing”.
- Who are the people who are close to you on this journey and what would you like to say to them?
“Judo is like life and there are moments when you hit rock bottom and you have people who don’t tell you that they love you, but you feel it… I remember that after Tokyo my head was a total chaos, darkness, emptiness and the only thing that made me get up in the morning and made me feel appreciated despite what had happened… my mom and dad! My first fans and having pillars in your life is very important. I feel very lucky to always be able to count on their support, they are my number one”.
- Who will win in your category in Paris?
“The winner will be the one who has everything in order in his head that day. Ordered and at the same time disconnected from what the Olympics are. I really appreciate Fabio Basile who, in addition to being a friend, is a great inspiration. And this question takes me back to when I won the bronze in the Grand Slam in Tokyo, December 2023, a medal of which I am very proud. The night before I confided in Fabio that I could no longer project myself on the podium, I could no longer visualize. At that point Fabio shared with me the first sensation of the morning of the race in Rio 2016. I, he told me, that morning when I woke up, I felt free. It gave me shivers. Words that, said by him, who managed to get where he got to, who I have known practically forever, exploded in me like a bomb. And from that time on they have changed me, and when I go running with headphones, I can project myself as an Olympic champion. Whether this will happen or not, only the tatami in Paris will tell, but after those words from Fabio, now I can project myself up there.”
- If a medal were to arrive in Paris, who would your first thought be?
“Me! I already have a sentence in my head, but I’m keeping it to myself, because I’d like to write it if it were to go the way I want. I feel like saying that it would be a circle that closes; a circle that opened a long time ago, and it represents my whole life. Because I’ve been doing judo since I can remember. I’ve been doing judo since I was three years old. I don’t remember anything, the first training sessions, the first competitions, I’ve been doing judo since I can remember. All my friends do judo, my nephews do judo, my brother does judo, I grew up on bread and judo. It would be a circle that closes and I could say that, even from that point of view, it would be a part of my career that closes. And another begins. But it would be cathartic”.
2024-07-15 17:20:09
#Italian #Federation #Judo #Wrestling #Karate #Martial #Arts
