Here’s holding thumbs that Plett’s Italian Ninja will bring home some Inca gold…
ON Friday, Galliano Boni – aka the Italian Ninja – departs Plett to represent South Africa at the 22nd edition of the FSK South American Karate & Kobudo Championships held in Catamarca, Argentina, from November 15-17.
On Galliano’s return from the WUKF and WJKA World Championships in July, he received an invitation from the Federation Sudamericana de Karate-Do (FSK) to participate in the South American All Styles Championships.
“The invitation came as a complete surprise – and then we needed to decide if he could attend or not.” says dad Roberto Boni, adding that Galliano had just competed in two world championship tournaments. which required months of hard training.
The youngster was given the choice, knowing that he would have to put in the extra hours for another three long months. Once he had made up his mind that he would participate, two hurdles lay ahead.
First, permission had to be obtained from the Education department for Galliano to be absent from school during his exams; secondly, finances for yet another international tournament had to be secured.
Due to Galliano s exemplary marks at school, he was given permission by both Plett Primary and the department to attend the championships, both acknowledging the honour of being invited to such a prestigious event.
The second obstacle was not as easy! We needed to find sponsorships for the second time in a year and understandably this was quite a challenge, ‘ explains Roberto.
But with the decision made, it was hoped everything else would fall into place. Then, on the day after the flights were paid for, disaster struck.
“The school called to tell me that Galliano had fallen and hurt his forearm. I immediately took him to the doctor and off for x-rays.”
The news could not have been worse: fracture. Everything was put on hold for four weeks until the cast came off on the eve of the NMA/ISKA South African Championships in Stellenbosch.
It was decided that Galliano would not fight and so risk further injury. He participated in the kata divisions and, albeit still in some pain, he managed to win three SA titles for Kata, Traditional Weapons. and Creative Kata.
Fortunately, the fracture had healed sufficiently for him to return to full-time training by early October.
Apart from karate, Galliano will be participating in the first-ever Kobudo Championship, where he will contend in two) divisions: Short Weapons with his Sia Kata, and Long Weapons with Bo Kata – which he only started learning a few days before breaking his arm.
The trip to Argentina will also be a special occasion for Roberto, who was an AFS Exchange student in Tucuman just six months after the Falklands War ended in 1982, and thus lived through some historic times.
“Although Eve been back since, it will be a privilege to take Galliano to meet my friends and host family, and to show him where I went to school and played rugby,” smiles Roberto.
Tucuman is famous for a particularly scrappy rugby match between the Springboks and Los Pumas which became notoriously known as the Battle of Tucuman…
At the tender age of nine, Galliano has attended six world championship tournaments, won one World Grand Champion trophy, eight world titles, five silver and four bronze medals. He has 33 South African titles to his name and here’s hoping he’ll return from Argentina with some South American silver (or is that goId…?)-ware.