Luxury problem in Italy or not?

Japan often has this problem but few other countries do. We’re talking about certain weight categories having more than one top competitor. In Japan, sometimes, there are as many as three top champions in the same weight class. Is it a luxurious, yes, a problem, not at all. You can also take all three useful.

Take for example, the U73kg weight category. At one time there as Hiroyuki Akimoto, Riki Nakaya and Shohei Ono competing for the same spot. All three were world champions. In time, Akimoto dropped out and later Nakaya did too. But Soichi Hashimoto emerged and Masashi Ebinuma moved up a weight to U73kg. So, for a while, there was also three world championships in that weight class (although Ebinuma was world champion at U66kg). Today, it’s basically a battle between Ono and Hashimoto because Ebinuma has retired.

Italy now has this “good” problem, and it happens to be in the U73kg weight class too. Italy has three top fighters: Fabio Basile, Manuel Lombardo and Giovanni Esposito, whose IJF rankings are 23, 51 and 21, respectively. On the surface, such rankings don’t look impressive but it’s different if you look at their individual achievements.

The most accomplished amongst them is Fabio Basile, who is an Olympic champion, albeit in the U66kg weight class. Since moving up a weight, he has struggled to win competitions but he has won two IJF World Tour events since moving up to U73kg. Time is not really on his side. He is 27 already, in 2024 he is 30. But to his advantage is the vast experience he has competing at the highest level. Watch the photo when the two Olympic Champions Basile and Ono met each-other in a fight.

Lombardo is a World silver medalist but he is impressive in other ways. He has beaten Olympic and double World Champion Hifumi Abe at least once (some would argue twice because he was robbed of a bronze win against Abe in the 2019 Tokyo World Championships due to a questionable refereeing decision).  He is also a European champion and has three IJF World Tour gold medals. He took part in the recent 2022 Antalya Grand Slam in his new weight class and took home a silver. His low ranking is low due to the fact that he is new to the U73kg category.

The 24-year-old Esposito, younger brother of former junior world champion Antonio, is the least accomplished of the three when talking about World and Olympic medals (he has none) but he has gotten two silvers in the World Tour, which shows his potential. Interestingly, he is currently ranked higher than both Basile and Lombardo. Be aware that there is new young blood coming up with Luigi Centracchio, the younger brother of Olympic medallist Maria Centracchio. He already took silver at the senior European Open in Prague this year. 

Who will emerge top dog among the three? Basile has the experience while Esposito has the hunger and the potential. But the one who has the momentum going for him is clearly Lombardo. Still young at 23, still peaking and already achieving good international results, it seems like just a matter of time before he races up to the top of the world rankings.

We estimate all three athletes will be selected for the European Championships in Sofia end of April.