She didn’t win any medals, although she deserved them, at least the bronze. Odette Giuffrida is an Italian judo champion: born in 1994, she won a silver medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. In this controversial Parisian edition she was defeated in the final not so much by her opponent, Larissa Pimenta, but by the referees’ decisions. It is not like her to blame others, she says in the interview she gave just after the decisive match, and she does not even give weight to the injury to her finger. She does not blame because she is more of a girl who recognizes merits: others’ and her own due to hard work and discipline and to God whose action she traces in everything she experiences, and she declares it publicly.
She says that both she and her opponent could rightfully earn the victory, but immediately adds that «if that’s how it went, the Lord…there’s a reason for everything”. Embittered, she gives the cameras a shadow of sincere sadnesson his beautiful face marked by the wounds of sports clashes, but nothing to recrimination, to revenge, to complaint. A human position that stands out, his, words that warm the heart of anyone, because defeats and injustices are suffered in every area and not only in sports; a moment of these Olympics, above all, that have already given the public around the world and in particular Christians the opportunity to be sorry for artistic expressions of very dubious taste, difficult to read in any other key than that of mockery of faith and its highest signs.
Odette is not ashamed of her faith and indeed shows it on every occasion, without fanaticism. At the end of the race, we read about Brazil urgent She congratulated Larissa and thanked her, talking to her about God. “Get up and give glory to God”he said leaning over her. The glory, regardless of anything, is God’s alone, let’s do our best, he added. On Instagram a short video of the moment when Odette hugs her opponent and says those words. We can use them on every carpet of conflict and encounter with the other and every time that life seems to knock us down, knowing that even the carpet on which we play our talents is firmly in the hands of a Father who loves us.
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2024-07-29 20:25:15
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