Samuli Viitanen captured gold for Finland at European Cup in Tampere

France clearly won the medal table at the European Cup in Tampere this weekend. The French won seven gold medals, but also host Finland is satisfied with two gold medals. Another statement that Finland is on its way back.

On Sunday Samuli Viitanen won his three contests and defeated Hannes Conrad for Germany in the final. On Saturday Katri Kakko had won gold for the host nation, but on Sunday Viitanen captured the U90kg gold after a lively final with the highlights in the last minute. Waza-ari for Viitanen and the second spot in the medal table for Finland. Viitanen also won silver at the European Open in Tallinn in 2016. He won the Finnish title U90kg in 2013 and 2014 and is considered one of the best of his nation. The winner: "Of course it was very nice to win in front of the home crowd. This was the first medal for me in Tampere. This was all a great milestone on my way to European Open in Glasgow. I am going there to pick up gold again and more ranking points“, said an optimistic champion.

Germany won gold U100kg though as Daniel Herbst defeated Zelimkhan Bashaev in the final in a small field of six judoka. French Nicolas Chilard picked up gold U81kg against his countryman Benoit Collin. Klaus Verlin won bronze for Finland and Olle Mattsson continuous to improve his year with bronze in Tampere.

French Maya Thoyer bested Alina Langweiler of Switzerland in the final U70kg, also six participants in this class. In total just 40 women in Tampere where the amount of women is traditionally low, last year even 35 women. Stessie Bastareaud added another gold for France in a pool of four women. Sandra Jablonskyte of Lithuania won against Elina Lehtonen +78kg. Last week Jablonskyte won bronze at the Grand Prix in Zagreb, the gold in Tampere wasn’t a surprise.