It was a very different journey for the French and Turkish teams as they made their way to the final of the Junior European Mixed Team Championships, closing out the tremendous week of judo in Prague.
To some it might come as little surprise that Team Türkiye will be in the bid for gold considering they finished top of the medal table of the individual competition, whereas France had a much different story.
Türkiye took on Germany in the semi final and convincingly defeated them 4-0 but down on the other tatami, Georgia took France to the 3-3 draw, pulling the +70kg category for the deciding match. Oceane ZATCHI BI (FRA) had won her original contest against Marine MAISURADZE (GEO) and managed a second defeat in only 6 seconds.
This will be a repeat of the 2021 event where France and Türkiye went head to head in Luxembourg, it was a 4-0 clean sweep by the French team, but new faces and big changes in the team looks to cause France some big problems.
With these semi final results, Germany go in to the bronze medal match with Azerbaijan and Georgia go to meet Ukraine.
Judoka
Author: Thea Cowen