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RITA TURRISI, born in Sicily, her father a Sicilian and mother Croatian. Her grandfather on her
mother’s side was a light heavyweight European champion in the early
1920’s. Rita trains and coaches other athletes who box and Thai Box in
Milan. Turrisi from the team SIDDHARTA has been operating independently
for two years under this name in Milan, Italy. Here she trains
and coaches other athletes who do boxing and Thai boxing.
Before Rita began boxing,
she was into the sport of swimming and shot-putting at school. It didn’t
take her long to realize that track-and-field sports were her childhood
dream. She was most suited to long-distance running and her time in the
42,195-metre marathon was so good that it got her into the Italian
national team. Unfortunately, she had a hemorrhage in her leg, and had to
undergo surgery which made it impossible for her to continue running. Rita
stopped—but she felt very bitter about it.
In the meantime, Rita got
involved in other sports, that included the triathlon and karate in the
goju-ryu style. However, there was no competitive spirit in the latter and
other defensive arts were too unrealistic for her, and she soon tired of
them.
As fate would have it,
while she was in a gym, she saw a training session for fighting and
encountered Thai boxing. Rita found what she had been looking for in a
sport.
Highlights of Turrisi
fighting career:
- On 12-10-96 she won the European title,
I.S.K.A., in the 62 kilo category, with a technical knock-out, in the
7th round.
- On 22-11-98 she won the European title,
W.I.B.F., in Croatia, in the welter-weight category, with a knock-out
in the 8th round.
- On 14-2-98 she won a kick-boxing match
in Zaandam (Holland), with a knock-out in the second round against her
opponent after a heavy exchange of punches.
- Rita Turrisi of Italy won the WAKO World Title in the 68 kg kickboxing
category. She defeated Ana Marija Jurinjak of Croatia by TKO in the fifth round of a scheduled
10-round bout in Bergamo, Italy on October 14, 2000.
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