Josefa Idem

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Medal record
Josefa Idem
Women's Canoeing
Olympic Games
Competitor for West Germany
Bronze	1984 Los Angeles	K-2 500 m
Competitor for Italy
Gold	2000 Sydney	K-1 500 m
Silver	2004 Athens	K-1 500 m
Bronze	1996 Atlanta	K-1 500 m

Josefa Idem Guerrini (born September 23, 1964 in Goch, West Germany) is an Italian canoer. She has won four Olympic medals in kayak flatwater canoe racing, and 35 international medals during her career. She was the first Italian woman to win World Championships and Olympic medals in kayak.

Josefa Idem began paddling at the age of eleven. In 1977, aged thirteen, she competed at the European Championships in Plovdiv and won gold medals over 200, 500 and 1000 metres as well as a bronze medal in doubles kayaking ("K-2") with Ravetta Rosette. In the following years she focused mainly on her language school education but competed for West Germany at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, winning a bronze medal in the K-2 500 metres with Barbara Schüttpelz. The next year Idem switched to K-1, the individual kayak racing event.

At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul she placed ninth in the K-1 500 metres and fifth with the West German quartet in the K-4 500 metres. In November the same year Idem moved to Italy where she eventually met Gugliemo Guerrini, her present husband and coach. The cooperation paid off as she won two bronze medals at the 1989 World Championships in Plovdiv, the city where she won her first international medals.

Idem married Guerrini in 1990 and hence became an Italian citizen in 1992. She competed for Italy at the Olympic Games the same year, placing fourth. Four years later, however, at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, she won the bronze medal in the K-1 500 metres.

This was the beginning of her most successful period: from 1997 to 2002 she won three World Championships titles (as well as 10 silver and bronze medals), five European titles and finally the Olympic gold medal in Sydney 2000. In 2003 she gave birth to her second child, but she returned to win her last Olympic medal at the age of 40. The silver medal in the K-1 500 metres at the Games in Athens gave her a total of four medals over her six Olympic appearances.

Today Idem lives in Ravenna, with Gugliemo Guerrini and their two children. From 2001 to 2007 she has been a member of the Ravenna city council.

Idem has also been involved in social work, most prominently as a spokesperson for Emergency as well as Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla, an organization for multiple sclerosis patients.