Last weekend, the athletes of the ‘Judo Kodokan Cesena 1966’ sports group stood out both for their determination and for their preparation at the sixth Trofeo del Po in Guastalla organized by the sports associations ‘Judo Kyoto Center’ and ‘Judo Shiro Saigo Suzzara ‘open to various bodies and federations.
Many teams from the region but also others from Tuscany, Marche and Lombardy were present at the event.
After checking the weight of the athletes, the competitions began. The matches directed by referees from the Ado (oriental disciplines association) continued throughout the day on two tatamis.
Kodokan Cesena attended the event with three athletes: cadet Samuele Romagnoli; junior Riccardo Santoro and senior Marco Brandolini.
After the greeting, the first to be called was Samuele Romagnoli who, imposing himself effectively on his opponents and dominating in all his matches until the end, was however forced to give up first place to his opponent when the gold was now within a step, thus finishing in second place.
Subsequently it was the turn of Riccardo Santoro, for whom a similar path emerged: meeting very skilled and expert athletes, despite having fought hard by winning all the matches, in the final match he was given an ippon by the opponent who did not allowed him to climb to the top step of the podium.
Finally it was Marco Brandolini’s turn, an athlete who has continued to reach podiums for years, despite often finding himself fighting in higher categories, as in fact also happened last weekend. The final was fatal for him too, with a defeat coming to Ippon. The club’s technicians Vladimiro Burioli and Michael Zoffoli who accompanied the boys, collected the trio of silver medals with the regret of the fact that no one managed to climb to the top step of the podium, an objective that was missed due to a matter of details.
No regrets, though. Indeed, the narrowly missed gold will act as a stimulus to increase intensity and determination in training.
The next Kodokan event will be in Modena for the teachers internship.
