Lucia Morico

Lucia Morico (born December 12, 1975 in Fano ) is a former Italian judoka . She won an Olympic bronze medal in 2004 and was European champion in 2003.

Athletic career

The 1.79 m tall judoka from Fiamme Gialla in Rome competed in the junior middleweight division. In 1993 she won the bronze medal at the European Junior Championships. In 1995 she moved to the light heavyweight division, but had difficulties at the national level against Ylenia Scapin and Emanuela Pierantozzi . In 1997 she won bronze with the Italian team at the European Team Championships; she started in the heavyweight division, since the two weight classes below were occupied by the two more experienced competitors. In 1998 she finished seventh at the European Championships. At the European Team Championships, the Italians won bronze again, this time Scapin competed in the middleweight division and Morico in the light heavyweight division, Pierantozzi was not active in 1998. In 1999 Morico was again seventh at the European Championships. This year she also won bronze in the open class at the Universiade and again bronze at the European team championships. In 2000 she won the silver medal in the open class at the European Championships, and the German Katja Gerber won the final .

After Emanuela Pierantozzi had ended her career after the Olympic Games in 2000 and Ylenia Scapin started middleweight division, Lucia Morico dominated the light heavyweight division in Italy in the following years. Internationally, she won the 2001 Mediterranean Games and the World Military Championships. At the European team championships, the Italians once again won the bronze medal. At the European Championships in 2002 she reached the final, but lost to the French Celine Lebrun . At the team world championships Italy won the bronze medal in 2002, at the military world championships Morico won the silver medal. In 2003 she became European Champion in Düsseldorf by beating the Spaniard Raquel Prieto in the final . At the end of 2003 she won the military world championships. At the European Championships 2004 Morico reached the final for the third time in a row, this time she was defeated by the German Jenny Karl . At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Morico was defeated by the Japanese Noriko Anno in her second fight , after three wins in the round of hope she received a bronze medal.

At the European Championships in 2005, Morico lost to the Dutch Claudia Zwiers in the quarter-finals , but then fought her way to the bronze medal. At the Judo World Championships in 2005 , she finished fifth after losing the battle for bronze to Celine Lebrun. In 2006 Morico was fifth and in 2007 seventh at the European Championships. At the 2007 World Championships she lost to the Japanese Sae Nakazawa in the semifinals , and lost the battle for bronze to the French Stéphanie Possamaï . At the 2008 Beijing Olympics , Lucia Morico finished ninth after winning only one fight but losing two.

Italian championship title

• Middleweight: 1993
• Light Heavyweight: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006

Web links

• Lucia Morico at JudoInside.com
• Lucia Morico in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )