Czech judoka Lukáš Krpálek (left) in a duel in the quarterfinals of the European Championships in Prague against Tamerlane Bašajev from Russia.
Krpálek, who is completing his first tournament in eleven months today, surpassed 30-year-old Sasson in all three previous matches, but this time he did not have an easy job. Sasson resisted until the set time, but then he visibly ran out of strength. In the second minute of the “golden score”, Krpálek got him to the ground and got an ipon.
The three-time European champion will compete for the bronze medalist Rus Inal Tasoyev or Guram Tushishvili from Georgia. The final block with Krpálek’s participation will start at 16:00.
Krpálek, for whom the European Championships is the first tournament after eleven months, first had a free ticket as the number one seed. In the second round he dealt with Johannes Frey. At first he acted more cautiously against his German opponent, but then he got into a popular fight on the ground. When he got Frey on the tatami for the second time, he managed to like it and the opponent gave up the match a minute before the end.
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Lukáš Krpálek (in white) wins the European Judo Championships in Prague using the technique of prying over the German Frey.
Vít Šimánek, ČTK
In the quarterfinals, however, Bashayev, the previous vice-champion of Europe and the second man of the recent Grand Slam in Budapest, was above Krpálek’s forces. The Russian national team had the upper hand from the beginning and after two successful attacks ended the match after a minute and twelve seconds. In the repairs, Krpálka is waiting for a bronze medalist from Rio Or Sasson from Israel, whom he has beaten in all three mutual matches so far.
Petr won at least one victory
Apart from Krpálek, only Jiří Petr in his 90s advanced from the Czechs today. He lost in the first round match with the Ukrainian representative Quedjau Nhabali, but the duel turned 59 seconds before the end, when he managed to hurry to the ipon. But then he was not enough for the reigning world champion and world number two Noël Van’t End from the Netherlands, to whom he lost seventeen seconds before the end on ipon.
David Klammert did not succeed in gaining a significant score in the Olympic rankings in the same category. In the first round, he resisted the bronze medalist from the last two World Championships, Axel Clerget, but after a minute and a half of the “golden score” he did not manage to fight on the ground and after the French strangulation, the duel ended. “I was pulling for a shorter end. I don’t know what it was. I felt well prepared. The most promising thing was ten seconds before the end when I had a good start. Otherwise I didn’t have many good starts there,” he said.
Alice Matějčková, during her debut at the European Championships in the last second, was constantly attacked by the favored Russian Antonina Šmelevová. Her performance in the category up to 78 kg also ended right after the first match. “It probably lacked more strength, because the whole match was going quite well. I also defended her hook there. As long as she has her hands, I couldn’t get to her at all. It cost me quite a lot of strength and she used it and in the last she threw me on ipon for a second, “she commented on her performance.
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