Beka Gviniashvili qualifies for World Championships, Tchrikishvili second

At the European Cup in Bratislava the ideal final developed throughout the day opposing the two judo icons Beka Gviniashvili and Avtandili Tchrikishvili U90kg. It was Gviniashvili making a waza-ari difference taking the second spot in the Georgian team U90kg. Ushangi Margiani already qualified for Baku.

The battle was the summum of the weekend where Russia took four gold medals followed by a surprising British team with two titles. On Sunday Bernadette Graf made a good comeback winning the women’s U78kg weight class. Graf is ready for the World Championships and in the final she was opposed to Anett Meszaros, speaking about surprising comebacks. Hungarian Meszaros was European Champion in 2010 U70kg. She won four World Championships medals U70kg and is now together with Graf fighting U78kg. Meszaros now 31, didn’t have too much opposition on the road to the final, still a class performance. Obviously Graf was a size too big again, they met before at the European Games in 2015 in Baku.

Stuart McWatt booked the victory U81kg against Hannes Conrad, a category with 43 judoka. It was the second European Cup win for McWatt, he also won in Saarbrucken in July. Not the largest division as on Saturday Augusto Meloni of Italy won the U73kg title with 46 men. Malin Wilson won gold for Great Britain U57kg and Russia was strong on Saturday with three titles for Ivan Dolgikh U60kg, Mirzoiusuf Gafurov U66kg and Daria Pichkaleva U48kg who was the youngest winner this weekend and she won her third European Cup which makes her th emost successful woman this season. On Sunday Heavyweight Anna Gushchina finished it off with the fourth gold.

Poland was close to gold U52kg but it was Sofia Hogrefe who advanced with the title for Spain. However on Sunday Daria Pogorzelec captured the gold medal U70kg against Alina Böhm (GER). Inbal Shemesh of Israel defeated Susanne Lechner U63kg and took the victory.

After a week of training in the Netherlands Ramadan Darwish booked a golden results in Bratislava taking the U100kg gold as a good preparation for Baku. Vladut Simeonescu bested Aslan Dzhioev in the heavyweight category and won gold for Romanian. With a little more than two weeks to go for the World Championships, Bratislava was the last European Cup. The last European Cup of the season will be held in Malaga as usual, in October.