The Netherlands takes three gold medal at day in Coimbra

The kick-off of the juniors’s European tour was marked by excellent performances of both Dutch and Portuguese teams, with 7 medals claimed by athletes from the Netherlands and 8 by local juniors. The final block couldn’t start any better for the Portuguese with the gold medal of Catarina Costa U44kg category and all-Portuguese bronze fights U48kg

The happy bronze medallists in that category were Joana Diogo and Luisa Silva, whereas the gold was taken by Nicole Kaiser from Austria. Kaiser dominated in the final Tamara Silva from Switzerland, who after great morning fights couldn’t get to the right position to execute her massive ogoshi in the final.

In the under 52kg category Lilo Schultz from the Netherlands won against local judoka Joana Fernandes with an effective morote seoi nage ippon, while the bronze medals went to Mariana Esteves from Portugal, who claimed her win with a beautiful jujigatame and Nicole Herbst from Austria, who faced her teammate Sarah Strohmayer.

Under 57kg the gold was claimed once again by a dutch athlete Dewi Karthaus, who won against Italian player Maria Centracchio, in what turned out to be a fast final.

Under 55kg was marked by an exciting final between Roy Koffijberg from the Netherlands and Sadikh Maharramov from Azerbaijan, filled with big techniques and a lot of doping from Azeri team. Sadikh Maharramov was the one who took the win in this match. Bronze medals went to Portuguese Alexandre Silva and Dutch Timo Van Leerdam.

Other winners of the day were Francisco Garrigos from Spain under 60kg, Antoine Bouchard from Canada under 66kg and Thierno Balde from the Netherlands in under 73kg category. In the last category Portugal won another bronze with an amazing performance of Anri Egutidze.

353 athletes from 19 different countries are competing this weekend in the first European Junior Cup in 2014.