Olympic & Paralympic Heros in CSIT Movement
More than 200 million individual members and sportspeople worldwide, over 50 member federations in more than 40 countries all around the world and 35 partner organizations. The CSIT has become a huge global player in amateur sports since its foundation more than 100 years ago in Belgium. Every two years, the CSIT World Sports Games are held with a variety of summer sports. With several thousand participants, the CSIT World Games are among the largest amateur sporting events. They are also the base and haven for many current and former Olympic athletes who have made it to Olympic medal honors. Here is just a small excerpt from a long and very successful list which will be adapted continuously.
AICS – Olympics
Fabio Basile – Gold – Judo – Rio de Janeiro 2016
Fabio Basile, 27, gold medalist in Judo at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, grew up in the Akiyama High School in Settimo Torinese (Piedmont). The high school is affiliated with the AICS and is directed by Pierangelo Toniolo. Fabio continued training in Settimo even after his great successes and has a life motto: "Judoka forever!" He sees sports education in AICS as growth in moral terms, not just physical ones. Judo, he says, is a life training for children who find and are taught ethical values and moral and physical training in this discipline.
Born and raised in the Piemonte region, he graduated from the Italian Army and has been part of the sports group since 2013. Fabio had already won the bronze medal in the category up to 60 kilograms at the 2013 Mediterranean Games in Mersin and at the 2013 European Youth Championships in Bucharest. In February 2019, he celebrated another great international success at the Grand Slam in Paris back with the bronze medal and also participated in the Tokyo Olympics.
AICS – Paralympics
Luigi Beggiato - Double-Silver and Bronze - Swimming Tokyo 2021
Luigi Beggiato, 21, won three medals in his first appearance at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. Silver in the 4x50 freestyle relay and 100 freestyle individual, and the bronze medal in 50 freestyle individual. Raised in the Guardia di Finanza sports club of the AiCS in Modena, he has been swimming since he was three years old. Luigi suffered from tetrahyperflexia and a functional deficit in his left arm from birth.
At the age of three, he experimented with water for his rehabilitation. From that moment a real passion was born in him, which led him to his debut in a competition in 2010. Swimming became an important part of his life. The sports results achieved over the years are an impressive testimony to this. For him, the importance of sport is linked to the possibility of minimizing disabilities and strengthening inclusion and autonomy. He is currently studying communication sciences and dreams of becoming a sports journalist after his sports career ends.
Monica Boggioni – Double-Bronze – Swimming – Tokyo 2021
Monica Boggioni, 23, suffering from spastic diplegia of the lower and upper limbs, grew up with AICS Pavia Nuoto. In 2021 she won bronze twice at the Tokyo Paralympics, in the 200m freestyle S5 and 100m freestyle S5. Monica started swimming to overcome the physical limits imposed by her disability. She got to know AICS through the inclusive project organized by AICS Pavia Nuoto to promote sports for young people with disabilities. In the pandemic, she was the AICS testimonial of the fundraising campaign "Sport to grow" and promotes sport as a means of inclusion by meeting students in schools in northern Italy. She has a degree in biotechnology.
Carolina Costa – Bronze – Judo – Tokyo 2020
Carolina Costa, 27, visually impaired, is an athlete of ASD Judo Franco Costa of AICS Messina and daughter of Franco Costa, Sicilian judo champion and president of the Italian Kendo Federation, who died in 2006, and Katarzyna Juszczak, former Olympic wrestler. She won the bronze medal in judo at the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics. Carolina started her career as an U23 judoka promising with very good results, such as a second place at the Italian Championships.
In 2016, at the age of 22, she was diagnosed with keratoconus, a degenerative disease that can lead to progressive blindness at a young age. As Costa's performance declines, it became necessary to switch to Paralympic sports, where she achieved excellent international results as a Paralympic athlete with a bronze at the World Championships and a gold at the European Championships.
HAPOEL – Olympians
Linoy Ashram – Gold – Rhythmic gymnast – Tokyo 2021
Linoy Ashram, 22, is a member of the HAPOEL Rishon-Lezion Club. She finished first in Tokyo 2021 and won the gold medal. It was only the third Olympic gold medal in Israel's history, the first by an Israeli woman and the fourth medal for Israel in Tokyo. Also due to her gold medal Israel finished fourth overall in the group all-around qualification.
Linoy prevailed against very strong competition and ended more than two decades of Russian dominance in the sport with her victory. "I've dreamed of this my whole life," Ashram said after her victory. "It's an incredible feeling to stand on the podium in this place and at this time and take first place," said the 22-year-old gymnast, who was chosen to carry the Israeli flag at the closing ceremony in Tokyo. Mrs. Kineret Tzedek, president of the Israel Gymnastics Federation, is sports director in HAPOEL.
Olympic medalists HAPOEL Israel
Barcelona 1922 - Yael Arad – Judo – Silver, Oren Smadja – Judo Silver
Atlanta 1996 - Gal Friedman – Sailing – Bronze
Sydney 2000 - Michael Koganov – Rowing – Bronze
Athens 2004 - Gal Friedman – Sailing – Bronze, Arik Zeevi – Judo – Bronze
Beijing 2008 - Choher Tsubari – Windsurfing – Bronze
Rio de Janeiro 2016 - Yarden Gerbi – Judo – Bronze, Uri Sasson – Judo – Bronze
Tokio 2020 - Linoy Ashram – Rhytmic Gymnastic – Gold
ASKÖ – Olympians
Alongside Sportunion and ASVÖ, ASKÖ Austria is one of the three major sports umbrella organizations in Austria and is represented in almost all sectors. The list of international sporting successes of its members is as prominent as it is long. There is hardly any major international sporting event in which ASKÖ athletes do not place in the top ranks. At the last Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021, ASKÖ was once again able to celebrate medals. This time even in a trilogy with Gold, Silver and Bronze by Anna Kiesenhofer on the bike road, as well as Michaela Polleres and Shamil Borchashvili in Judo.
Anna Kiesenhofer - Cycling Road Race - Gold - Tokyo 2021
Anna Kiesenhofer, 30, teaches mathematics at the university in Switzerland and rides a bike for Team Cookina ARBÖ ASKÖ Graz. With her gold medal as an absolute outsider in the cycling road race, the likeable athlete surprisingly and also sensationally wrote Austrian and Olympic sports history. Kiesenhofer took the lead of the field right at the beginning of the race and celebrated a start-finish victory, winning the 136 km Olympic road-race in Tokyo in an outstanding manner and completely unnoticed by the competition. The rest is history. Anna thus won Austria's first gold cycling medal since 1896 and the first gold medal for an Austrian athlete since the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens by triathlete Kate Allen.
Michaela Polleres – Judo – Silver – Tokyo 2021
Michaela Polleres, 24, the world number eight sensationally won silver in the judo weight class up to 70 kg at the Tokyo Olympics after reaching the final. With spectacular throws and quite a lot of emotion. The 24-year-old two-time world champion came to judo at the age of eight and also to her home club Judo Wimpassing Sparkasse, where she also currently trains with the national coach and her home coach in the judoka national team. "Arriving in Schwechat after Olympic silver was just mega! I knew that my family will be at the airport. But that so many are there, that flashed me," said Polleres at the very emotional reception at the Vienna Airport.
Shamil Borchashvili – Judo – Bronze – Tokyo 2021
Shamil Borchashvili, 26, from the club LZ Multikraft Wels, has won Bronze at the Tokyo Olympics - the first medal in Judo for Austria since the 2008 Games in Beijing. The 26-year-old burst into tears after the victory, completely emotional because he had worked so hard towards this goal. Shamil and his brothers Wachid and Kimran have their training base in the Olympic Center Upper Austria, where he also came into contact with the sport of Judo.
The story is a little fairy tale. A refugee fairy tale, because the Borchashvili family fled from Chechnya to Austria in March 2004 and was taken in at the first stop in a refugee camp near Vienna. In 2020, the family bought a house in Upper Austria with Shamil's five sisters and two brothers. In 2006, the Center for Far Eastern Martial Arts (Budokan Wels) was opened near their home, which came to his attention through a flyer. Spontaneously, he and his two brothers attended the "Judo course for beginners". The rest is Olympic history.
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