It was a Golden day for Emoke Knetig of Hungary in -52 kg. She fought her way to the final match where she eliminated her opponent in less than one minute and the gold medal was hers. Great performance!
Asimina Theodorakis from Austria fought her heart out in the -57 kg and after four fights she saw herself in the final. After having put a waza-ari on the board earlier in the match, Theodorakis had to settle for silver in the end after a tough battle. But this young lady has a promising future!
The Hungarian’s team success continued as Kitti Kovacs picked up the bronze medal in the category -57 kg. The bronze medal match was a Hungarian one as Kovacs had to defeat her teammate Ibolya Siroki to get the spot on the podium! Strong work from these women!
Czech Tomas Binhak got his first medal in senior level as he took home the bronze medal. After finishing fifth last time, he was eager to get on the podium and fought his way to the bronze medal. Great to see new Czech hopefuls coming up!
Another Czech success was to World Tour medallist Michal Horak in the -100 kg category. He earned himself a spot on the podium and a bronze medal after some strong matches.
Austria’s Wachid Borchashvili was able to pick up his first medal in his new category -73 kg. The Junior European Championships medallist had finished fifth twice before this medal and was able to break through and get on the podium.
Brigita Ljuba, earlier Matic, had another strong tournament and went all the way to the final. The 2015 Junior World Champion is making her way up the rankings after her son was born and we are so proud of her!
Lucija Babic had a great day as well in the -70 kg category where she clinched the bronze medal throwing for IPPON in the bronze medal match after having dominated it until then. Awesome work!
Also, it was an all Croatian bronze medal match as we saw Katarina Lucija Vukovic and Tina Radic face each other in the heavyweight category. It was Vukovic that took the victory and the bronze medal!
On day two, Hungary picked up another medal as Evelin Salanki secured her spot on the -78 kg podium by clinching the bronze medal.
All in all, a great tournament for the Ippon Gear athletes and we are happy to see new faces on the podium! Next up for the seniors is the IJF Judo Grand Prix in Tashkent in 2 weeks where we will see some of our athletes return after the World Championships.
Fifth places:
Daniel Monori -60 kg
Lukas Hlavacek +100 kg
Tena Sikic -57 kg
Ibolya Siroki -57 kg
Tina Radic +78 kg
Zrinka Miocic +78 kg
