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Sami Chouchi moves up to U90kg

Sami Chouchi moves up to U90kg

17 Jan 2023 20:40
Le Soir by Philippe Vande Weyer
IJF Emanuele Di Feliciantonio / International Judo Federation

Sami Chouchi will try to make a difference in the U90kg category. Chouchi who competed with Matthias Casse in the U81kg category, has decided to try his luck one division higher and try to qualify for the Paris Olympics. The first will be the Grand Prix of Portugal at the end of the month.

For a long time, he to get passed Casse and had a good period. But Casse became World Champion in his division and to finally achieve his Olympic dream he will have to be creative, U90kg is the answer. With 18 months before the Paris 2024 Games, Sami Chouchi has made up his mind.

Chouchi (29) had given himself the Jerusalem Masters, at the end of December, as a final deadline to see if he could hope to make up some of the ground on Casse, and this at the end of a very good season, where he had finished 3rd in the Grand Slams of Paris and Tel Aviv and in the European Championships in Sofia. But in the World Championships in Tashkent he lost to Nagase in his second contest. In Jerusalem at the Masters he was close to a medal but took a fifth place.

After weighing up the pros and cons, Chouchi decided he will take his first steps in his new weight at 28 January at the Portuguese Grand Prix, before doing so again at the Grand Slams in Paris (5 February) and Tel Aviv (17 February). Competitions where he will have the disadvantage of not being seeded and at the end of which he will draw a first conclusion.

It is not the first time that Sami Chouchi changes category. In 2016, after missing out on qualification for the Rio Olympics in the U73kg division to Dirk Van Tichelt (who went on to win a superb bronze medal), he chose to move up to the U81kg category when he resumed training after undergoing shoulder surgery following a serious injury sustained during the Paris tournament in February.

Career so far

Sami Chouchi won gold at the Grand Prix in Cancun in 2018. He took a silver medal at the 2018 European Championships in Tel Aviv and bronze in 2022 in Sofia. In 2011 he was already Belgian senior champion at the age of 18. In 2013. He won bronze at the European U21 Championships in Sarajevo. He took a few medals at European Open level in 2018 when he won gold in Oberwart. In the IJF World Tour he clinched a bronze medal at the Grand Prix in Tashkent in 2019 and Grand Slam in Tashkent in 2021. He bagged a bronze medal at the Grand Slams in Paris and Tel Aviv in 2022.

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