Who could possibly have a truly perfect year? Especially in judo. Sinem ORUC (TUR/-63) just had one. The Turkish girl was the big surprise in Porec last year. Nobody expected her to win the title. This time the situation was completely different. Since Porec, Sinem had an unbelievable 32 singles victories, 18 of them this year alone, as well as the World Championship title in Sarajevo and five other tournament successes. In Odivelas she needed 5:33 minutes (in four fights) to win the title. A year ago, Oruc was on the mat for 13 minutes and 10 seconds longer. By the way: The IJF number one has now been unbeaten for 414 days.
More facts and figures of day 2 of the European Cadet Championships in Odivelas:
- With Sinem Oruc (TUR/-63), Abil Yusubov (AZE/-66) and Lucio Tavoletta (ITA/-73), no less than three world number one’s lived up to their role as favourites and won U-18 European Championship gold on Friday. The other two winners were also among the favourites: local hero Maria Silveira (POR/-57) is number 3 in the IJF ranking, Alyssia Poulange (FRA/-52) is the current number 6.
- Azerbaijan (5 x gold, 3 x bronze) is more than likely to take the victory in the medal table. The Azeris already have the same number of medals as a year ago in Porec. In terms of gold medals, they are already ahead (5 currently, 3 in 2021/22).
- Host Portugal was able to write itself into the history books on Friday. With gold (Maria Silveira/-57) and silver (Rodrigo Janeiro/-60) they not only stormed into second place in the current medal table. Portugal has never won two medals at cadet level, only once at junior level (at the 1994 European Championships at home!).
- France, Germany, Italy and Spain (20 each) have the largest contingents of athletes, Portugal has 18. The host nation naturally sets the tone for the coaches, nominating a total of 18 people – i.e. one coach for every athlete. 8 nations have only one national coach each (among them KOS with Olympic champion Majlinda Kelmendi and DEN with Tommy Macias).
- In the meantime, a total of seven nations have won at least one European Championship title, and a total of 19 nations have already won a medal.
Judoka
Author: EJU Media