Ceric and Samardzic capture gold for Bosnia Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina celebrate two gold medals in one day at the European Cup in Sarajevo. For its own crowd Larisa Ceric celebrated a gold medal in the women’s heavyweight category. For Ceric her sixth victory in Sarajevo in a row, an outstanding record. In a field of 11 women Ceric was the strongest. In the final she overcame Milca Zabic of Serbia.

Young talent Aleksandra Samardzic won gold in the women’s U78kg. The 19-year old won the final against Mathilde Gil of France the silver medallist of the European University Championships in Reims last year. It was the first time that Samardzic competed at this level in this new weight class. She was champion U70kg the previous two years in Sarajevo. The youngest ever winner of a European Cup (when she was 15) defeated Ivana Maranic of Croatia in the semi final and won in total four matches.

To win the gold U70kg would have been quite a challenge for Samardzic as today’s gold medal went to world bronze medallist Katarzyna Klys of Poland. The judo-mother was by far the most experienced judoka in the field of 13 women. Klys defeated Turkish Merivan Tankos in her last match. The Turkish was Dutch until last year and won the Turkish title recently. The silver was her best ever international result. Klys who usually doesn’t fight at this level of European Cups uses the event as preparation for the European Championships in Kazan (RUS) in April.

Harun Sadikovic had to defend his title of last year. The heavyweight title was the Bosnian teen had to fight against Vito Dragic of Slovenia. Dragic did all he could as it was his fourth European Cup final in four different cities, but he never won a senior gold medal outside Slovenia, until today. He overcame Sadikovic in front of the home crowd and celebrated the gold medal for the first tim ein his career.

It doesn’t happen too often for Sweden that a Swedish men wins a European Cup. Emil Mattsson was well in shape today and took the title U100kg. Mattsson, won all four matches. His last bout against Renato Omboli of Hungary. The semi final he overcame Henrik Reitan, another Nordic athlete, from Norway. In the past the Pacek brothers took victories at European Cups and lightweight Olle Sundstrom won once in 2009 the Sarajevo Open. It looks ages ago for the 20-year old Mattson.

Alexander Roslyakov took the victory U90kg. The Russian defeated French Jourdan Valentin who surprised himself today and a field of 21 athletes as he took silver U90kg. The Frenchman scores medals at French events, but today he won his first medal at an international event. Roslyakov is more familiar at this level. He won European Cup medals in Malaga and Tampere but never a victory.

The gold in the category U81kg was captured by Bojan Dosen. In the final he defeated his 8 year older compatriot from Serbia Uros Nenkovic.