On day one of competition, we saw France’s Driss Masson Jbilou in -55 kg making his way through the category winning all of his five fights towards the final only with IPPON. In the final, he bested his Italian opponent and could end his day with the French National anthem in the background after a more than successful day showing what he is made of and what he is capable of doing. We are so excited about the future of this youngster!
Luca Mamira of Hungary also finished on top of the podium in the -40 kg category. The lightweight makes this her third European Cup final this year and her second gold medal. Very impressive for the youngster!
Also, Balint Gombas made it to the podium in the -60 kg category. The Hungarian is familiar with making it to the podium and this time it was no different. He had to get through 7 hard fights to get there but he showed persistence and finished the day with another medal. We are proud of you!
His teammate, Peter Safrany in -81 kg made it to the final on day 2 of competition. After beating strong opponents including the Japanese. With impressive IPPON judo, he fell short of the gold medal against his Russian opponent. But this is his third European Cup medal this year, and we are so excited to see him fight at the European Championships later this year!
In -70 kg, there was a medal for the Czech Republic as Radka Voriskova made it to the podium and won the bronze medal. This is her first European Cup medal and we are happy to see new youngsters making their way up and showing what they can do!
In -50 kg there was a 5th place for Hungary’s Akos Barczikay who just missed the podium after a great day of competition. His teammate, Daniel Szegedi in -66 kg also just missed the medal and ended on a fifth place as well.
Czech Republic's Tereza Bodnarova in -44 kg, Croatian Nina Simic in -48 kg, Rebeka Rita Koszegi also in -48 and Szilvia Farkas in +70 kg also showed that they can get close to the medals as they all placed on fifth places. We know you will get it, next time girls!
On day two, Austrian Sebastian Dengg in -73 kg also had a good performance as he made it to the bronze medal match but in the end, had to settle for 5th place. So, did Hungary’s Zalan Turkanszki in -90 kg, who was leading on his Japanese opponent in the bronze medal match but could not keep it up and sadly lost out.
There were 7th places for Bence Farkas, Bence Kovacs, Armand Pokk, Nikolett Nyiri, and Verena Hiden. Great placements in this hard Cadet European Cup!
Great stuff for our upcoming athletes and amazing to see how many of them are chasing the IPPON! We are proud of all you!
