Golden moment for Lara Cvjetko at home in Zagreb

The dream final of the Grand Prix in Zagreb U70kg between Barbara Matic and Lara Cvjetko, the country’s two most decorated judo athletes, seeded 1 and 2 at the event, met in the final. It turned out in a payback.

These friends and training partners have already contested a major final, the 2022 Tashkent World Championships, where Matic came out on top and claimed her second world title in a row. That final was already very special but to meet again in a final on home soil would be a different kind of special.

They did not disappoint. Neither player was quite at their best but both still produced some great judo throughout the day and it is often said that the mark of great champions is that they always get the job done, especially when they’re not firing on all cylinders.

Their previous final together was dominated by Matic but this time Cvjetko came out with a renewed focus and energy and the two judoka engaged in a series of frantic exchanges, while still cancelling each other out, as is often the case when the fighters know each other’s game inside and out.

Both picked up penalties, two each, and things then began to open up, in the second minute of golden score. Cvjetko came close with an ura-nage attempt but Matic posted using her arm to avoid a full landing. Matic struck back with an uchi-mata but Cvjetko landed on her front. The decisive action came in the 4th minute of golden score when Cvjetko latched on to her opponent’s leg with a ken-ken-o-uchi-gari, throwing all her body weight forward to land Matic on her back. There was elation for Cvjetko who, with this result and her Masters bronze medal, is giving her country a selection headache ahead of the Paris Olympic Games. This was her 2nd gold medal at a grand prix, after winning in Portugal last year.

Matic kicked off in round 2 with a win over Drysdale Daley (JAM). She threw the Jamaican with her trademark o-uchi-gari to uchi-mata combination and transitioned directly into tate-shiho-gatame to score waza-ari-awasete-ippon in just under two minutes. Next up was Eme (FRA) who gave Matic her toughest fight of the preliminaries, threatening to counter the Croatian’s forward throws many times. It took more than six minutes of golden score to decide the contest, when Eme ran out of steam. She attempted to pick Matic up but unfortunately landed on her own back and right into osaekomi.

Matic’s quarter-final was over very quickly by comparison; she threw Bock (GER) for ippon with o-uchi-gari from a belt grip in just 90 seconds. Victory by penalties was required in her semi-final with Pogacnik (SLO), whom she beat to the attack in every exchange but she couldn’t quite convert those attacks into scores. Regardless, it was mission accomplished for Matic, as her place in the final was secured.

Cvjetko’s road to the final began with arguably her toughest early round contest, a round 2 bout with Loriana Kuka (KOS) who has recently moved down a weight class after winning numerous medals at -78kg. The match featured a series of intense gripping exchanges but Cvjetko made sure she was faster to attack on average, Kuka picking up a third and final penalty in the 6th minute of golden score. A waza-ari from a ko-soto-gari attack in the 2nd minute of her round 3 match with Carvalho (BRA) was enough to see her through to the quarter-final stage, where she met the dangerous Hungarian, Gercsak. This was an open contest, ended with a hopping o-uchi-gari from Cvjetko which scored ippon with 30 seconds left on the clock.

The decisive moment in her semi-final against the much taller Eliza Wroblewska (POL) also came 30 seconds from the end, where she pulled off an uchi-mata to score waza-ari impressively, much to the delight of the many young fans in the crowd. Cvjetko held on to set up that dream final.

In the first bronze medal match, Wroblewska faced Irene Pedrotti (ITA) who defeated Bock in the repechage contest. A two-sleeve seoi-otoshi from the Italian around the halfway mark scored her a waza-ari, which was enough to secure the 23-year-old her first ever World Tour medal.

The second bronze medal was decided between Pogacnik and Aleksandra Samardzic (BIH), the latter of whom had previously knocked Gercsak out in the repechage but had lost to Pogacnik in both of their previous meetings. The Slovenian dominated the contest from the outset and was eventually  successful in throwing with soto-makikomi for waza-ari, before freeing her leg to finish Samardzic with ushiro-kesa-gatame. This was Pogacnik’s 4th grand prix bronze medal and her 7th overall, so far in her career.