Every day the IWGA awards prizes for the male and female IWGA Athlete of the Day - powered by Tissot! Today, the jury of experts has selected Powerlifter Larysa Soloviova (UKR) and Archery winner Amedeo Tonelli (ITA) as Athletes of the Day.
Ukrainian powerlifter Larysa Soloviova wrote her name in the record books as she produced a stunning series of lifts to blow away her competition, and secure her fourth consecutive title at The World Games. She started as the firm favourite as she is listed as having been World Champion from 2011 up to the present day. The 38-year-old athlete set the tone for the evening with her first lift in the squat discipline. Whilst some of the other athletes in the competition showed glimpses of fallibility with grimaces of pain, the Eastern European lifter always came to the weights calm and assured that her body would not let her down. Using a smooth technique, she would take hold of the bar, and lift in a manner that suggested powerlifting was not the difficult taxing sport that it undoubtedly is.
However it was in the benchpress that the Ukrainian really pressed home her advantage, raising a magnificent 170 kg - the equivalent of lifting two fully grown men.
By the time that the deadlift, the final discipline, came around, all the enthusiastic spectators in the National Music Forum were aware that history was about to written. Soloviova had first won gold at The World Games 2005 in Duisburg under her maiden name of Larysa Vitsiyevska. She then retained her titles during the editions held in Kaohsiung, Chinese Taipei (2009) and Cali, Colombia (2013). With her second lift of 210kg easily achieved, Larysa Soloviova won the competition overall and confirmed that she was one of the greatest athletes ever seen at The World Games.
Amedeo Tonelli amazed everyone with his performance today on the Archery field in Men’s Recurve. His earlier achievements include some medals from team events, but he was not one of the favourites to win The World Games. Italian archers Andrea Parenti (1993) and Michele Frangilli (2005) have both won this event, and Italian recurve men have picked up a total of eight medals in the division over the past six editions, so he had big shoes to fill in Wroclaw. And what did he do? He shot consistently well from the qualifications to the final, and finally won the final against one of the best in the world, Brady Ellison (USA).
“This is my first World Games title, my first big individual competition. I’ve been out of the international competition for while, so this is a big achievement for me. I’m pretty happy to contribute to the Italian tradition of being consistent and good in field archery,”
said Tonelli. “Expectations were high. Brady is a 'beast', he’s the number one, so it’s really tough to shoot against him. I enjoyed the match, stayed focused and I did it,” Tonelli said.