For the first time in the young history of the World Team Championships, two European teams qualified for the final. On Saturday the women’s event took place in Antalya and neighbors Germany and The Netherlands fought the final in a tough match won by the Dutch.
Susi Zimmermann put Germany in the lead. Zimmermann defeated Kitty Bravik in a close match. Juul Franssen seemed to score a waza-ari but was corrected to no score but despite her active opponent Mimi Roper she won by a hold down which was the decisive point in the end.
Elisabeth Willeboordse’s loss at the world gave her quite a knockdown, but her win at the Grand Prix of Rotterdam gave her new energy. But Malzahn took the initiative in the match. She lost four times to the Dutch judoka but won the last match in the final of the GP in Tunis. But halfway the match Willeboordse decided the match by ippon unexpectedly.
Linda Bolder lost to Iljana Marzok in the final of the World Cup in Warsaw but defeated her later this year in Birmingham for bronze. Today Bolder could decide the world title and led the match by yuko after three minutes and was able to finish the match on the ground.
The last match seemed to heater out as heavyweight Carola Uilenhoed and Heide Wollert, usually U78kg, seemed to drew but Wollert scored a waza-ari in the end and finished with a hold down for the honour.
Holland never took a medal at the World Team Championships, the best result was 7th in 2002. A great success for Marjolein van Unen who is headcoach for 13 years now. For the first time she could sing the Campeone campeone in a team event.
It was a long time ago that both teams had met in an official event. In three European team Championships both countries were in fact equal. In 1994 Netherlands won, 1997 Germany and in 2003 in Düsseldorf both countries drew but Germany scored more points and qualified for the final Europeans later that year.
Japan collected the bronze medal, the title holders of 2008 lost in the semi final to Holland and had to face the Brazilian women’s team for the bronze. But the Japanese recovered from their earlier loss and defeated the South American team by 5-0. Yuka Nishida, Chie Iwata, Miki Tanaka, Mina Watanabe and Aya Ishiyama fought the final and all won their matches. Yuka Nishida was the only 2010 World champion who won a medal on Saturday.
The home team of Turkey did really well today and even defeated France for bronze in the end. The hall exploded when Belkiz Zehra Kaya took over Eva Bisseni for her second waza-ari finishing the match. The crowd went nuts after this historic moment and the team thanked the public.
The whole match Turkey was in the lead 1-0 Samat, 1-1 Loko against Zehir, 2-1 Katipoglu, 2-2 Perrotte against Bayram and the 3-2 by Kaya.
Turkey started really well with a lead against Japan, but Turkey lost the last two fights resulting in 3-2 for Japan.
In the repechage fight the talented Turkish team defeated Mongolia by 5-0.
France won bronze despite their loss against Germany in the semi final. But for bronze the French couldn’t hold the Turkish pressure and lost 2-3. France was last edition’s runner-up and now with empty hands.
Turkey picked up their first ever World Championships medal and … on home soil.
Download the full results in our results section:
https://www.eju.net/results/?mode=showResult&id=393
