Golden Adam Okruashvili proud best of the rest

Adam Okruashvili took his first European title in his career. In the era of Teddy not much is left for the others, but Riner only participated four times (and won all) and also this edition he had to cancel due to an injury. The rest was formed by guys like Bor, Saidov, Meyer and Matiashvili. But it was number 36 on the World list Or Sasson who reached the final with impressive judo.

The Israelian was eager to double the ultimate success with another gold medal, but the reputation of Okruashvili was not for nothing. Although Sasson led in penalties after two minutes of judo but not much later Okruashili took over an attack of Sasson to the ground, strangled him, went into a hold down at the same time but the strangle was on and Sasson tapped quickly.

The transition to the ground was magical and that made the difference in the match. After two lost finals in 2013 and 2014 Europe’s best is now Adam Okruashvili.

Adam OKRUASHVILI lost two previous finals

"No, those defeats are in the past. I was not thinking about that, only about winning this match. There was pressure on me in the quarterfinal when I fought against my team-mate (Levani MATIASHVILI), but I didn't have to prove anything to anyone. I just went out there and fought and won, and I'm very happy with that."

"I aim to do celebrate the medal by winning more gold tomorrow in the team competition."

Russian Renat Saidov won the bronze today in Baku. Last week the 2.06m tall Russian lost in an early stage and didn’t seemed to be in shape, but today he did win bronze, although without Riner in the field things look less. Saidov won bronze at the World Championships and will always be an outsider for a medal. In his last bout he defeated Georgian Levani Matiashvili. Fourteen second for the end Matiashvili started a weak o-soto and Saidov could easily take over and win the eight medal for Russia.

New man Iakov Khammo from the Ukraine looked good the whole day. His opponent was Marius Paskevicius (LTU) who defeated the highest seed Barna Bor today. In the semi he lost to Okruashvil. Khammo lost to Saidov, another tall one, but beat Roy Meyer in the repechage. The European Junior champion led from the first minute by wazari and built out the match halfway with two yuko scores but didn’t get the second waza-ari. He hold his lead to the end and won the bronze.