From Friday 28 to Sunday 30 October the Arena Hotel Hills in Sarajevo will host i European Under 23 Judo Championships 2022, the last major continental youth event of the season. Italy will be engaged in the Bosnian capital with a delegation made up of 16 athletes, divided equally between male and female categories, to try to prolong the positive wave of the last tournaments and hunt for new records for the blue movement.
In the last edition of Budapest 2021 the tricolor team had finished fourth in the medal table with 2 golds (Martina Esposito and Gennaro Pirelli), 2 silvers (Irene Pedrotti and Biagio D’Angelo) and 2 bronzes (Martina Castagnola and Giacomo Gamba), but the best performance ever of the Bel Paese in this event dates back to Wroclaw 2014 with the beauty of 8 podiums.
Equalizing or even improving these numbers in Bosnia will be almost impossible, not least because all the Italian Under 23 judokas who are already permanently part of the senior national team have not been called up in order to better prepare the next appointments of the World Tour valid for the Olympic qualification in Paris 2024.
Judo, Grand Slam Abu Dhabi 2022: no podiums for Italy on the last day
Italy will therefore be represented by the following athletes: Simone Aversa (60 kg), Leonardo Valeriani (66), Luca Rubeca (73), Alessandro Magnani (73), Luigi Pippa (81), Tommaso Fava (90), Enrico Bergamelli (100), Francesco Basso (100), Giulia Ghiglione (48), Alessia Tedeschi (52), Carlotta Advanced (57), Thauany David Capanni Dias (57), Flavia Favorini (63), Antonietta Palumbo (63), Cecilia Betemps (70), Betty Vuk (78).
Photo: IJF