Olivia Cicciarella, a martial artist with Manitoulin roots and multiple gold medals, is competing at the WAKO Junior World Championships in Italy in September in Creative Open Hand and Creative Weapons.
ITALY鈥擮livia Cicciarella is planning to take her martial arts career international as she prepares for the World Association of Kickboxing Organization (WAKO) Junior World Championships in Italy in September. She has close connections to Manitoulin through her mother, Stephanie Cicciarella, and her grandparents, Ed and Connie Ferguson of Green Bay. She trains at DeSantos Martial Arts with Kwan Jan Nim Veronica DeSantos, who is a master instructor. Trained by DeSantos, along with other notable coaches and instructors like Tesso Gordon, a former Canadian Olympian, Olivia has become a strong competitor.
She last appeared in The Expositor in August 2024 following a brilliant performance at the Southern Ontario Spring Martial Arts International in Cobourg, where she won four medals: a bronze in both the traditional open hand and traditional weapons events, a silver in the musical open hand and a gold in the musical weapons. What made her gold-medal routine stand out was the fact that she used nunchakus, a weapon which is less commonly used in competition than the traditional bo staff.
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