Russia is the best cadet European nation since 2005

At the second and last day of individual tournament of the Cadet European Championships Georgia captured two gold medals. Again, seven different nations claimed titles, but some were the same as Friday’s winners. Russia and Georgia were victorious in the medal table.

Again a gold medal for Croatia, the second, this time for Lara Cvjetko who bested Giovanna Fusco of Italy in the final U57kg. Germany was expected at the second day, but U63kg Annabelle Winzig couldn’t grab the gold as another big favourite Anja Obradovic took gold at the right moment. Winzig was impressive this season but again settled for silver medal. Obradovic won European bronze in the junior category last year and was the only athlete who prolonged her title of last year. In her category U63kg 35 athletes participated, almost as much as the men’s U66kg on Friday. Serbia must be satisfied with gold and silver this edition. Last year Serbia had the best ever result with four medals and two titles.

There was gold for Germany U70kg where both Marlene Galandi and Raffaela Igl qualified for the semi finals. Igl lost her last two contests, while Galandi won hers and defeated Morgane Fereol of France in the final. Galandi is the sixth German European Champion U70kg, it says enough that this is the most competitive category in Germany. In the past Franziska Konitz, Miriam Dunkel, Lisa Schneider, Giovanna Scoccimarro and Alina Boehm became European cadet champions in this class.

Sophio Somkhishvili added a second gold medal for Georgia. The heavyweight was able to take the fourth European title for a Georgian girl in history. Last year Somkhishvili won silver, this time she won the title.

The first gold medal for Georgia on Saturday was for Lasha Bekauri who defeated Kenny Komi Bedel of Italy in a strong category for Italy where Mattia Prosdocimo won bronze. Turkey had a great championship with two gold medals. Mert Sismanlar who was a surprising winner in a somewhat surprising category. In any age category U81kg is a competitive weight class. Igolnikov, Gviniashvili, Minaskin, Randl were some of the historic winners in this category. The new name is Mert Sismanlar.

Finally Italy got what it deserved, a gold medal after two unsuccessful finals finals. Enrico Bergamelli was very active this season, but took his most important medal when the timing was right. Bergamelli overcame Georgian favourite Mikheili Bekauri. David Babayan completed the Russian story with the third gold medal, placing them in first position in the medal table. The heavyweight bested Richard Sipocz who was in shape the whole season, but could not quite win in Kaunas. Babayan had a superb season with gold medals in Follonica, Tula, Berlin and Bielsko Biala. It was a dream final decided in the golden score, and so was the medal table. Russia was again the best nation for the 12^th consecutive season. In 2004 Azerbaijan won the most medals.

Russia won 75 European titles in history in this age class. France (33), Azerbaijan (26), Germany (21) passed the Netherlands (21) in the all time ranking.

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