Italian
Odette Giuffrida wins the bronze medal on the first day of the European Judo Championships taking place in Tbilisi
TBILISI (GEORGIA) – The first strike is from the captain of the blue team. First day of the European Championships in judo in Tbilisi and immediately a beautiful bronze won by Odette Giuffrida in the weight category of -52 kg. On the opening day of the continental event on the tatami of the Olympic Sport Palace the thirty-one-year-old from Rome has achieved her fifth European podium in her career after the success marked in Prague 2020 and three silvers (Lisbon 2021, Zagreb 2024 and Podgorica 2025).
Giuffrida enters the bracket directly in the round of 16 thanks to a bye and faces the Azerbaijani Leyla Aliyeva, who is then defeated in golden score due to the third shido given by the referee to her opponent. In the quarter-finals, the Roman athlete wins with a yuko against the Dutch Naomi Van Krevel, thus securing Pool B and access to the semifinals.
Here the blue athlete faces the number 1 in the ranking, the Kosovar Distria Krasniqi (who later won gold against the French Amandine Buchard). The match goes to golden score where Giuffrida loses after a minute by yuko. In the bronze medal match Giuffrida, despite a shido, keeps her concentration high and manages to defeat the Hungarian Reka Pupp, ranked third, after just over two minutes of golden score thanks to a waza-ari.
The other results
Bad day for the blue athletes, all eliminated in the quarter-finals except for Assunta Scutto who was defeated in her debut match in the -48 kg category by the Azerbaijani Hamidova by waza-ari.
In the -60 kg category, Andrea Carlino wins against Blazic (SLO) by ippon with ouchi gari in the golden score and loses in the second match to the Azerbaijani Aghayev. In the -66 kg category, Valerio Accogli defeats Jeremic (SLO) by waza ari but loses to Izvoreanu (MDA). Finally, Elios Manzi defeats Christodoulides (CYP) but is stopped by Bayramov (AZE).
Today is the second day of competition with Veronica Toniolo (Army) in the -57 kg category, Carlotta Avanzato (Gold Flames) in the -63 kg category, Leonardo Valeriani (Yellow Flames) and Fabio Basile (Army) in the -73 kg category. The entire event is available for streaming on judo.tv.
The statements
These are the words of the blue athlete at the end of the match:
“For now, I have mixed feelings. I am disappointed about the semifinal because I was having a good fight, I missed it by a little. Over the years, however, I have learned that you have to enjoy everything. I am happy to have mentally recovered so that I can fight for the bronze. It was the only medal I was missing, in fact. I like the tough draw, I enjoy fighting against the strongest, I feel brave: I was happy with the high level of my category. I aim for continuous improvement and I like to challenge myself by learning new things. As for today, I think I deserve happiness. And I want to be happy for this medal.”
The comment from DT Raffaele Toniolo: “A day with alternating emotions here in Tbilisi. There are no words for Odette’s bronze; once again our captain made us feel emotions and fought very well even in the match where she had to give in to Krasniqi. The other four Italians were eliminated in the round of 16, each of them made small mistakes that make a difference at this level and on which we need to work to improve.”
Photo Credits: fijlkam.it/Emanuele Di Feliciantonio/IJF)
