Hungary took the lead on the medal table after day two of the European Youth Olympic Festival Gyor 2017, when SZEREDAS Botond stunned his Austrian opponent, Samuel GASSNER for Ippon in the final of the -60kg category. In addition to Hungary’s success, Serbia, Israel and Georgia also delivered victorious moments.
The player of the day is Gefen PRIMO of Israel. The 17-year-old judoka began her day as number two seed and first took out Susanna SUNDBERG (FIN). Primo scored three waza-ari against Sundberg and to wrap up the contest, she [Primo] held down her Finnish opponent for the full 20 seconds. In the quarter-finals, Primo faced later on bronze medallist, Lou-Ann MASSON (FRA). During this contest, the Israeli judoka shined with an uchimata-ouchigari combination to flatten Masson for Ippon. Meanwhile, Primo’s rival, OZBAS Szofi (HUN) lost during her quarter-final contest against Romania’s Ramona MICULA. Primo explained that the defeat of her rival [Ozbas], whom she lost against at the Cadet Europeans few weeks ago, did not affected her in any ways, in fact, she was only focusing on her judo.
Although, Primo was not able to take revenge on her primary rival, she showed dominance throughout the whole day. During her semi-final, Primo faced Kubra SENYAYLA (TUR), where within the last minute of the contest, the Israeli judoka shined again with her ne-waza skills and successfully completed her sangaku attempt to secure her spot in the final. Romania’s Micula was waiting for Primo on the upper half of the draw. It was the first ever international attendance for Micula, which for Primo meant facing the unknown.
“I never fought with the Romanian girl before but I thought that if she is in the final she must be good. In the final, I expected a good fight and I had to make sure to keep moving and keep trying. I really wanted the gold medal.”
Primo was right about her opponent as it was first Micula who scored for waza-ari. Not long later the Israeli judoka managed to bounce back with a waza-ari score and to end the competition in style, Primo stunned Micula with a spectacular uchi-mata to earn the first gold for Israel this week at the EYOF Gyor 2017.
“I am really happy, I wanted the gold badly. It was really exciting on the podium to listen to your own national anthem and I am really proud.”
When asked whether she would swap the European silver and EYOF gold, Primo responded;
“Uh, this is a difficult question to ask, but I think ending my Cadet career with a gold is unreplaceable.”
