Belgian Roxane Taeymans times career highlight well

The gold medal in the category U70kg was for Belgium. Belgian Roxane Taeymans and Russian Alena Prokopenko qualified. It was Belgium who claimed the gold. Roxane Taeymans needed five minutes and 34 seconds without scoring before she convinced the referee by ippon. In the golden score she almost scored but made the difference on the ground with an immediate follow up by ude-garami and Prokopenko tapped immediately.

Taeymans was successful in the preliminaries against Bakacak (TUR) and Artoshina (RUS) and won against Barbara Matic who tapped after an armlock again by Taeymans, resulting in an elbow injury in the semi final.

Prokopenko won her pool via victories over Andriyevska of the Ukraine, Talach (POL) and last year’s European Champion Franciska Szabo. Prokopenko won a bronze European U23 medal U78 in 2011 but stepped back one category successfully this year. She won three European Cups in Orenburg, Tampere and Boras and was the highest seeded today but second on the stage. Also Taeymans started well this year with a European Cup victory in London and silver in Sarajevo but couldn’t medal anymore; she waited for the right moment, in Samokov.

Taeymans gave Belgium its second European U23 victory after Rosseneu won the title in 2010 U48kg. After taking a seventh place at Junior level in 2010 and fifth place last year U23 in Prague, now it was the time for Taeymans to grab the gold. Let’s not mention successful middle class athletes as Werbrouck and Jacques, just whisper them.

What a surprising bronze medal win for Franciska Szabo, the reigning European Champion of last year. She surprised Lucie Perrot in 20 seconds in her last match and could show her smiles in the end. She won a strong pool with Anne Ritt (GER) who beat Bernadett Graf from Austria but was defeated by Alena Prokopenko in the semi final. The quick victory was also a surprise for Szabo who didn’t have her best preparation given an injury, but was able to give Hungary the second medal this event.

Karolina Talach of Poland took the bronze. She didn’t have to fight World Junior Champion Barbara Matic who got injured on her elbow in the semi final against Taeymans. Talach is the successor of Beata Rainczuk in this category, she won gold in 2007 U70kg.