Stangar sisters both take gold at European Cup in Bratislava

The first international senior event after the World Championships was the European Cup in Bratislava, Slovakia. The event is a good preparation for the European U23 Championships in November in Montenegro. Also a few juniors captured the medals in Bratislava such as teens Marusa Stangar and Teresa Zenker.

Slovenia secured three gold medals. The first gold in the men’s competition was for Slovenia. David Starkel defeated Stefano Monticone. Hungarian Bence Pongracz was the youngest medallist this weekend with his 17 years.

Poland won one gold medal thanks to Lukasz Golus who won his division U66kg. Serbian Ilija Cijganovic reached the final but couldn’t secure that Serbian gold this time. The category U73kg was by far the hottest category with 55 judoka won by Augusto Meloni in an Italian final against Enrico Parlati. Also U81kg the field was not bad with 45 judoka. On Sunday Eldar Panhani grabbed the gold medal after be bested British Owen Livesey.

The home crowd cheered for Peter Zilka who won the first gold medal for Slovakia. Zilka defeated neighbor from Czech Republic Jiri Petr. Zalan Ohat of Hungary took one of the two titles for Hungary. Heavyweight Emese Karpati won the second gold for Hungary. The men’s heavyweight title went to Romania as Mircea Croitoru defeated Fedir Panko in the final.

The Stangar sisters added two gold medals for Slovenia. Marusa won her category U48kg whilst Anja Stangar was the best U52kg. The sisters also both won the European Cup in Sarajevo this year. They also both won European Junior cups and national titles. Ukraine took a second title as Mariia Skora won U57kg in the final against Martina Lo Giudice. Italy was a bit unlucky with four lost finals. U63kg there was an all Dutch final with winner Geke van den Berg who overcame Iris Iwema with even Michelle Benjamins on the podium, the only category with such domination by one country.

Evelien Berndsen captured the second gold for Holland after her victory in the division U70kg. Alina Langweiler took silver, Australian Aiofe Coughlan won bronze among the ten Aussies. German youngster Teresa Zenker (19) defeated Lucia Tangorre of Italy, her compatriot Linda Politi and Dutch Jasmijn Lesterhuis won the bronze.

In October is the last European Cup this season in Malaga.