Following an all-French collision for the first bronze medal, the FDI Stadium welcomed teams from Georgia and Ukraine to the tatami; Golden Gori and Judo Ukraine, to decide the second bronze medal.
The teams bowed, and left the tatami, leaving only their +70kg women; Sophio SOMKHISHVILI (Gori) and Ruslana BULAVINA (Ukraine) to kick off this head to head. Going in to the second half of the contest, Somkhishvili was the one in control, biding her time before she executed an ippon-scoring o uchi gari. Irakli DEMETRASHVILI (Gori) continued the heavyweight take over, scoring initially with te waza against Yevheniy BALYEVSKYY, before transitioning in to ne waza for the osaekomi.
Half way to a bronze medal, Golden Gori put forward their -57kg representative, Eteri LIPARTELIANI against Judo Ukraine’s Inna SHYNKARENKO. Right from the start, Liparteliani demonstrated she was feeling bold and looked for her huge ura nage, but her first score actually came from an o uchi gari. As Shynkarenko realised she had nothing to lose, she almost took a run at her opponent, who again hooked in for a spinning o uchi gari this time, win number three for Golden Gori.
The pressure was now on for 2024 U23 European Champion, Giorgi TERASHVILI (Gori) to complete the clean sweep and take his team to glory, but in his way was a difficult opponent, Vladyslav KAZIMIROV. After an incredibly tough four minutes of regular contest time, the -73kg men delved in to golden score, and for another three minutes managed to stave one another off. It was an unfortunate conclusion in the end as Kazmirov was disqualified for a head diving infringement, the last time we will see this on the European Judo Union Tour with the new rules going in to effect in the Paris Grand Slam 2025. This of course meant that the fourth win went to Golden Gori, finishing the bronze medal contest 4:0. Terashvili has been on a roll recently,
It’s another win, but this one is different. It is not my own, it is not my country, but my home of Gori. It is great to win as a team, but this gives me a special feeling. Being the fourth win is amazing, I had already celebrated the rest of my team and being the last one is great. That final was tough, I fought him before and he is a really good judoka so I knew it would be hard and you saw, it was really a difficult match. Now I’m happy to celebrate another medal with my friends.
Judoka
Author: Thea Cowen