Russia and Germany add gold to medal victory

Russia and Germany have again showed they are good in the age category U23 at the European Championships held in Bratislava. Both nations won three gold medals and both nations added a gold medal at the last day of the championships.

In the men’s category Oleg Ishimov showed he was the most impressive judoka of the day. With all ippon victories the Russian used all his skills to take the gold medal in Slovakia. In the final Ishimov defeated Croatia’s strong man Zlatko Kumric who had beaten another Russian in the quarter final, Niiaz Bilalov who won the bronze medal. Ishimov needed only 40 seconds for the victory against Kumric with a great drop kata guruma with a superb cross grip. He completely surprised his opponent and grabbed the gold. Gergo Fogasy added another medal for Hungary.

The Czech Republic saw a Good David Klammert today in the category U90kg where he won the gold medal. In the final he defeated Dutchman Rico Harder who also impressed in Slovakia with a variety of techniques. But in the final he got caught by Klammert who launched a beautiful makikomi after one minute. Only in the semi final against Polish Tomasz Szczepaniak he needed the full five minutes but overall he used an average of one and half minute per match. Michel Verhagen (NED) and Nicholas Mungai (ITA) won the bronze medal.

Fedor Panko and Andrii Kolesnyk battled in an all Ukraine final. Not the best final of the day, but it was Panko who had one penalty less where both men couldn’t score. Panko was the best though today and defeated Bendeguz Demeter (HUN) in the semi final by ippon. Bendeguz won the bronze and Anton Krivickij was the winner in a contest with Vito Dragic who received four penalties, which was the knockout for him.

In the women’s division U78kg Slovenia won the first medal of the event, but gold compensated a lot. Klara Apotekar who won earlier this year in Bratislava had a good practise over there. Again she was strong and the silver medallist of the World Junior Championships again celebrated a gold medal in the Slovakian capital. Apotekar took revenge on the world junior final against Brigita Matic. She took over the Croatian halfway the match and Matic couldn’t get back and was okay with the gold medal for Apotekar. In fact only the fourth European U23 title for her country. Aljaz Sedej in 2007, Rok Draksic in 2009 and Nina Milosevic in 2012, where we would expect more European titles for such talented country. Slovenia lost 8 finals though and Apotekar compensated that balance a bit as well. Melora Rosetta of Italy took the bronze medal as well as Hungarian Evelin Solanki who overcame last year’s winner Maike Ziech (GER) in the bout for bronze.

Germany did win gold as Carolin Weiss was the best +78kg. In the final she launched two uchimata attacks and the second was lethal for Ivana Sutalo of Croatia. Weiss kept the tradition up for the German heavyweights. Franziska Konitz won the title in 2007, Kristin Buessow in 2010 and 2013. Aydana Nagorova contributed to the medal win of Russia with a bronze medal. Poland won gold Y52kg and five bronze medals, Beata Pacut won the last for the organisers of last year’s European Championships.

For Croatia it was the fifth lost final at this championship, a bit sad but also a big compliment to have five finallist in different categories. Since 2003 the Croatian lost 7 finals and never won.

Twelve new champions as only Islam Yashuev (U60kg) and Sappho Coban (U57kg) could remain their titles. Russia is still leading since the first edition with 33 gold medals followed by Hungary (22) and Germany (21). France is fourth, the French were not attending just like last year and with a tragic weekend in Paris it is good that sports continued but with one minute of respect in advance.