It was a golden day for Czech Marketa Paulusova in the +78 kg, who defeated all her opponents on the way to the final and in the final she captured her gold medal in style by finishing the contest in just one minute.
Mascha Ballhaus, who is still a junior for another year, fought in the -48 kg and has already picked up two bronze medals at Senior European Cups. A little over a month ago, Ballhaus finished fifth at the Junior Europeans and was eager to prove her worth on the senior circuit and take home the gold. That she did! She blasted through her preliminaries rounds and won the gold medal in the Golden Score and secured her first Senior European Cup victory.
We are proud of you! Jakub Jecminek, who fights in the -73 kg, also made it to the final as well as his teammate Paulusova. It was a long and draining match that had to go 2 minutes into the Golden Score to find a winner. Sadly, Jecminek fell short of the gold medal this time but finished with a strong silver medal. You'll be on top soon!
The Petr brothers both finished on the podium in each of their respective categories. Ivan Petr, who fights in the -81kg category lost out in the preliminaries but returned in the repechage and won all his fights with magnificent IPPONs and captured a bronze medal and a spot on the podium.
His brother followed up his success and won the bronze medal in the category above, -90 kg. Jiri Petr lost out in the semifinal but other than that he was flying through the day winning his other three matches on IPPON including the bronze medal match.
In -81 kg, we saw another IPPON GEAR athlete on the podium and with a bronze medal around his neck. It was Greek David Tsokouris who finished beside Ivan Petr and captured his second Senior European Cup medal. More to come!
A fifth place went to Hungary’s Fanni Toth in -78 kg and Czech Michal Horak in -100 kg as well.
A very strong competition for our team and especially for the Czech Republic. We are proud of our partners continuously working hard, improving and representing us. For some of these athletes the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi is up next but for the younger ones the highlight of the season the U23 European Championships will take place in 2 weeks.
