Dutch Sanne Vermeer picks up straight line to the top

Three Dutch judoka were responsible for the victory in the overall medal count at the European Open in Prague. In the afternoon session, Sanne Vermeer and Natascha Ausma captured the gold, while Margriet Bergstra took silver in the early session on Saturday. Brazil also won two gold medals: Pereira and Soares.

The 18-Year old Sanne Vermeer is a phenomenon. The World Cadet Champion won the European U21 title last year in Malaga and debuted two weeks ago at the senior level at the European Open in Oberwart, but lost her first match. Vermeer converted her loss into a gold medal in Prague after winning five straight matches. In the final, during golden score, Vermeer won with a well timed counter for ippon. She defeated French Clementine Louchez, who is 8 years older. There was another victory for a teenager after Daria Bilodid captured gold for women U48kg this morning. Bilodid, who is only 16 years-old, and Vermeer have a similar path and are considered to be exceptional talents. Time will tell whether they can maintain these outstanding performances; with changing weights, many things can change, but Vermeer seems to have found her ideal weight category (U63kg). She fights with intelligence and will need all her focus on her study as well...what will be the priority moving forward? In Prague, is was certainly judo and she impressively crushed her opponents.

The second Dutch victor was Natascha Ausma, another talent in the highly competitive class U70kg. But in the Netherlands, Kim Polling is injured for the next six months, Linda Bolder and Esther Stam switched nations, and in fact, only Ausma and Sanne van Dijke remain. Now Ausma stands out by winning an outstanding gold medal. The world Junior bronze medallist suffered an elbow injury in October of last year, but came back with a nice bronze medal this year in Sofia. In Prague, however, she was able to show her best judo, although the real opposition started in the semi final against Belgian Roxane Taeymans (BEL). In the final, Lea Pueschel (GER) was once again her opponent. They know each other from several previous encounters. After ten seconds, Ausma scored first with a good ko-uchi combination and built up the lead with a second score within two minutes.

Brazilian Samanta Soares gave Polish Beata Pacut some hope in their scoreless bout, but after two minutes she surprised Pacut with a well timed seoi-nage and came up with an armlock. Soares won her three matches by ippon. Brazilian champion Soares is used to senior level. She won her first World Cup medal in 2009 and two years ago she was in the final in Prague, as well, but lost Gemma Gibbons. This time she captured the gold, which was her first title on European ground.

Heavyweight Maryna Slutskaya took gold for Belarus and brought her country to the top of the medal table. The 25-year old judoka booked her third Continental Open victory. Last year, she won bronze at the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi. On Saturday she was the number one seed and bested her four opponents. In the final, Beatriz Souza was beaten by ippon two minutes into the contest after she got Souza on the ground, but fell victim to quick submission from an armlock. Both Brazil as the Netherlands won two gold and one silver medal. Poland, Belarus, and the Ukraine won one gold medal each in Prague.