The 2024 European Karate Championships, scheduled these days in Zadar, they have officially closed. Let’s see how things went on the last day of competitions on the Croatian tatami, from an Italian perspective. The men’s kumite team, made up of Luca Maresca, Daniele De Vivo, Lorenzo Pietromarchi, Andrea Minardi, Michele Martina, Matteo Fiore and Matteo Avanzini, takes the continental title 30 years after the last time. The path of the Azzurri was extraordinary, as in the final against Greece they finally managed to prevail 3-1 over the Greeks.
That’s not all, because the silver medal of the women’s kata team also arrived on Balkan soil today (Terryana D’Onofrio, Elena Roversi and Michela Rizzo), unfortunately defeated by Spain with a score of 43.8 to 43.7, and the bronze of the male kata (Mattia Busato, Gianluca Gallo and Alessandro Iodice), capable of overcoming the French representative with the result of 42.70 to 41.70.
Below are the words of the Technical Director Luca Valdesi on the FIJKAM website: “We started off very well straight away and on the first day we won 3 gold finals and 1 bronze final. On the second day we took 1 for gold and 3 for bronze. By the third day we reached 10 finals, of which 6 for gold and 4 for bronze. Furthermore, for the first time in history, both kumite teams fought for gold in the same edition. In the kata it had already happened in the past“.
“We arrived – he continued – with an urgent need: to qualify the women’s kumite team for the World Championships in November. Our primary goal was achieved before we even got to the finals. This gave us great joy. Of all the gold finals, unfortunately we only won one, but the queen category, team kumite. Italy had not won this title for 30 years. The only time was in 1994 and President Benetello also competed“.
“This very positive result made yesterday a little easier for us, when we unfortunately lost the bulk of the finals. However, we have also won 3 out of 4 bronze finals, which are also always very tense, given that in case of defeat you are left empty-handed. Unfortunately we missed Veronica Brunori’s match against the reigning world champion, and it wasn’t an easy task“.
“We have analyzed – he concluded – the various gold finals that we lost. They were all very very difficult. Germany in women’s team kumite has 2 consecutive European titles with the same members. Avanzini and De Vivo (2004 and 2003) fought against strong home athletes. The support had its weight but, if we pay for a bit of inexperience, we are really happy with their result. Terryana then lost her final against the world vice champion despite a perfect draw. Terrryana is doing a very complicated job, she is modifying her performance and her executive parameters. We need to build new automatisms, a long process of internalization, assimilation and automation, and she is doing it great. In the semi-final she also beat the reigning European champion. Even the kata team, same situation. Spain were very aggressive, they are historically a very strong team and we lost by just a tenth of a point. Here too, in addition to Terryana, we have very young girls, Elena Roversi and Michela Rizzo were born in 2004. With such a young squad it was difficult to expect these results and we don’t expect more. Now, with work, we will build that experience to further improve and demonstrate their value both in Europe and in the world.“.
Italy as a whole he closed the event with 13 medals, between karate and parakarate, with 3 gold.
