Nick Delpopolo from Westfield, N.J., by way of Montenegro, doesn't medal but stands tall in judo competition

LONDON — He began life as Petra Perovic, living in a crib on a dirt floor in an orphanage in Montenegro. These days he goes by Nick Delpopolo and lives in Westfield, N.J., and if things Monday didn’t quite follow his Olympic script, well, he sure wasn’t going to mope about it.

“I trained hard. I fought hard. I think I’m a winner, and I’m proud of that,” Delpolpolo said.




Nick Delpopolo is 23 years old, a thick-bodied, square-jawed judoka who weighs 161 pounds and has gnarled ears and was so fired up before his final Olympic fight Monday — a fight that would’ve kept him alive for a bronze medal — that on his swaggering walk to the mat, he smacked himself in the head and both sides of his face.
You wonder why he does this, and then you talk to him and you begin to appreciate the intensity that pours out of him like lava.

“Judo is my life,” Delpopolo said. “I’m going to go until my body can’t go anymore.”

Delpopolo attended Bergen Catholic HS for a time, and left judo for wrestling to take advantage of college-scholarship opportunities, but when he shredded his knee and was out for more than a year, the college recruiters vanished. Judo was always his first love and he dove back into it, and he became the best in the nation in his weight class.

Delpopolo competed in the 73 kg class in the Olympics, won his first two matches Monday and then fought the No. 1-ranked competitor, Korea’s Ki-Chun Wang, to a scoreless tie, only to lose on a unanimous judge’s decision.

An hour or so later he was back on the mat, against Mongolia’s Nyam-Ochir Sainjargal, another highly ranked opponent. They had split two previous matches and now Delpopolo, who is coached by Jason Morris, the former Olympic medalist from upstate Glenville, had to find an answer, had to go for it. Morris knows something about this business, having won silver in Barcelona, before getting off one of the best press-conference lines you have ever heard, when he described what happened when he got thrown by the Japanese gold medalist, Hidehiko Yoshida.

“I flew Air Japan,” Morris said.

Nick Delpopolo didn’t get thrown by anybody at the ExCel Arena, but he didn’t throw anybody, either. By the time he faced Sainjargal in the repechage round, trying to get a shot at the bronze, he couldn’t summon his usual aggression.

“He just didn’t pull the trigger often enough,” U.S. coach Jimmy Pedro said.

Delpopolo wound up getting assessed a point penalty for taking too long to get to his feet with some 30 seconds remaining in the five-minute bout. That was it. He bowed to his opponent and left the mat.

“I deserved (the penalty),” he said.

Said Pedro, “He had a phenomenal day. He'’s just an inch away from being a guy on the medal podium.”

Delpopolo talked about the thrill of meeting Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in the Opening Ceremony and telling him about his Montenegro roots, and then Nick Delpopolo spoke about wanting to return to Montenegro to see his biological father. He tried once before and it didn’t go well but Delpopolo is not going to let this go. He knows exactly what he wants to say to his father.

“I’m your son. This is what I’ve done. Thank you for putting me in an orphanage and giving me some kind of opportunity. Without that, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Petra Perovic was adopted by Dominic and Joyce Delpopolo when he was 21 months old. He still feels guilty about the kids who weren’t adopted and given the new start he had.

He took up judo at 5 and now it is his whole life. His girlfriend, Carrie Chandler, is a former national judo champion. His sister does judo, and his parents are big judo fans. He left without a medal, but he has his purpose, his passion and it has taken him from a dirt floor to the Olympic mat. Look for him in Rio de Janeiro in four years.

“Two thousand sixteen is not only a possibility. It’s going to happen,” Nick Delpolpolo said.

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