Romania celebrates World title after 19 years for Adrian Sulca

An amazing performance of Adrian Sulca of Romania who captured the fourth ever Junior World title for his country. Alexandru Lungu (1994), the great Alina Dumitru (2000) and Carmen Bogdan (2002) were the previous Romanian World Champions. 19 years later Romania finally celebrates a junior World title. Dumitru never became World Champion but was crowned Olympic Champion in 2008. Sulca is aiming for a place at the Olympic Games in 2024.

If the first athlete qualified for the final, Adrian Sulca (ROU) became known rapidly, it took a long golden score between Umalt Demirel (TUR) and Joan-Benjamin Gaba (FRA) to determine who will face him. It was eventually Demirel who qualified after Gaba was disqualified for applying a forbidden technique.

The first interesting sequence of the final was on the floor, with Adrian Sulca showing all his skills to take control over his opponent, but Demirel showing no less effective defensive capacities. The match kept going with a steady but intense pace until another groundwork session. This time Adrian Sulca did not let his chance pass by. He flipped Demirel over to pin him down for ippon. At the end of the match the winner showed his respect to his opponent by helping him to stand again.

Adrian Sulca said, "I’ve been working so hard for this moment. My toughest opponent is me. I have to repeat to myself to not give up. I didn’t give up! I had fun on the mat and now I am world champion. Next step: the senior category!"

In the first bronze medal contest, Joan-Benjamin Gaba still had a chance to climb on the podium against Luigi Centracchio (ITA), who had the whole Italian delegation behind him to cheer and hope for another medal of the host country. After having been penalised twice already, the French judoka was under pressure and for the second time in a row after his semi-final, he applied a forbidden technique and was disqualified, giving the bronze medal to Italy to add one more award for the host country.

The second match saw Jus Mecilosek (SLO) reaching the bronze medal contest against Czech Daniel Pochop. Mecilosek, scored a first waza-ari to take the lead, but the score was cancelled. The match went on with several strong attacks from both sides, but eventually Daniel Pochop scored a waza-ari after 2 minutes and 10 seconds of golden score, with a koshi-waza technique, to win the medal.