Manuel Lombardo stamps his mark at debut U73kg

Last year, 23-year-old Manuel Lombardo achieved a career peak with two notable achievements. He was both European Champion and World Silver Medalist. He did that as a U66kg player. This year, he has decided to move up to U73kg, something that had been in the works for some time already.

Players moving up a weight class is fairly common in judo but not all players are able to adapt to fighting heavier and stronger opponents. So far, this doesn’t seem to be a problem for Lombardo, who made it to the final of the 2022 Antalya Grand Slam.

Although Lombardo failed to win the gold, getting an IJF World Tour silver medal in his first outing in a heavier weight class is an incredible achievement. It's certainly a sign of more good things to come for this remarkable player who has shown in past events that he can beat the best the world has to offer.

Among the top champions he has beaten are World Champion An Baul of South Korea, Olympic Champion Beslan Mudranov of Russia, and yes, Olympic and double World Champion Hifumi Abe of Japan.

In fact, Lombardo would have twice triumphed over Abe had it not been for a questionable video judges’ decision to overturn an ippon in his bronze medal match against Abe in the 2019 World Championships.

Abe had come in for a seoi-nage when Lombardo managed to counter him. The referee signaled ippon, and the crowd in the stadium as well as everybody else watching the livestream, thought “That’s it, it’s over!”

But it wasn’t. The video judges overruled it, saying that Lombardo had fallen on his back. But if you watch the video of that play in question, you will see that Lombardo was clearly on his side and not his back. Many ippons had been given for players who landed in such a position when countering their opponents. Nevertheless, the score was cancelled.

Lombardo was a top contender in the Tokyo Olympics where he was expected to get his revenge on Abe. But in Tokyo, he stumbled and failed to get a medal of any color.

That was a disappointing end to what would have been a fantastic year for Lombardo. But now he’s back, heavier but stronger than ever, and ready to stamp his mark on the U73kg division. It will be interesting to see how he fares compared to his compatriot Fabio Basile, now that they are in the same weight class.

History U73kg

So far Giuseppe (Pino) Maddaloni has been the most successful fighter U73kg ever with the Olympic title U73kg in 2000 and two European titles. Current coach Francesco Bruyere reached world silver in 2005. U71kg Ezio Gamba was the most successful with two Olympic medals including the title in 1980, two world finals and four European medals.

Current Italians U73kg

Internationally Italy now have a few athletes in U73kg with Fabio Basile, Giovanni Esposito, Manuel Lombardo and Luigi Centracchio.