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World Champions fail in prelims at European Championships

World Champions fail in prelims at European Championships

30 Apr 2022 12:45
JudoHeroes

What an amazing second start of the day at the European Championships in Sofia. Two World Champions are out of the tournament: Lasha Shavdatuashvili and Barbara Matic. However those were not the only surprises, as the seeded players were serious threatened today.

The category U73kg had stunning preliminaries where Lasha Shavdatuashvili was one of the first victims. Giovanni Esposito defeated him in the second round. Also Israelian Tohar Butbul didn’t survive the shift and lost to Petru Pelivan. Same for Akil Gjakova who lost his first match against Arsen Avedisyan, for many exotic names, but judo is not anymore for the big judo countries. Fabio Basile was knocked out by Martin Hojak who lost to Hidayet Heydarov and Mark Hristov of Bulgaria was the next sensation who won his pool and defeated Benjamin Axus and Rustam Orujov.

U81kg Matthias Casse won his pool in which another former World Champion Sagi Muki was the victim after his loss against Alfonso Urquiza, perhaps motivated by yesterday’s Spanish results. The second Belgian Sami Chouchi won his pool as well but Frank de Wit got knocked out by Jack Gamba of Italy. The Italians are on fire as also Antonio Esposito defeated favourite Vedat Albayrak, but he forgot to win the quarter final against Sergii Krivchach (UKR). What a big names didn’t qualify for the final stage!

In the women in it wasn’t so different as number one seed Lucy Renshall was defeated in her first contest against Kosovo’s Laura Fazliu. Gemma Howell, the other British had a good start and defeated Paris winner Barbara Timo. World bronze medallist Anja Obradovic lost her first round against Sarai Padilla.

World Champion Barbara Matic lost her first battle against Swedish Ida Eriksson, a pool won by Dutch woman Hilde Jager. Marie Eve Gahie this time defeated her French teammate Margot Pinot in that pool where Bernadette Graf lost her first match. Sanne van Dijke and Michaela Polelres met the expectations and qualified for the semis.

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