Sebastian Lehmann GER M1 -73kg may have a good claim to having taken the hardest won gold medal of these European Championships for Veterans to date. In a field of 14 athletes Lehmann managed to come up against three of the four Russians featured. Showing fine balance, timing and tactical awareness the Brandenburger carved his way carefully through a quartet of opponents. Lehmann’s day began oddly as he prepared to take to the mat wearing protective headgear. Reminded by the referee that this action infringed the rules Lehmann needed close on ten minutes at the mat edge to have his head bandaged. Apparently Lehmann, as a youngster, had undergone corrective surgery on both ears that left fine and delicate scaring at the rear of the ears and the risk of opening these scars was too great a risk to take; hence the bandaging. Also topping the podium for Germany was Lehmann’s team mate, Sebastian Baehr GER M1 +100kg who, not to be outdone, defeated three Russian fighters in a row to take gold in his category. Both Sebastians hail from Frankfurt an der Oder and there will, no doubt, be some serious celebrating in Prague tonight. Also popping the Champagne should be Olga Jirousova CZE F2 -78kg. Judo certainly appears to run in the family as her son, Marcel Jirous, is the current Czech national champion at -73kg. Jirousova won all three of her contests by ippon to take gold for the hosts on the final day of individual competition.
The team competition begins at 09:30 on Sunday.
You can follow all the action live on the EJU’s live stream.
The full list of results is available by clicking on the following link:
http://www.ippon.org/ec_vet2014.php