Photo credit: Emanuele Di Feliciantonio/IJF
Day two and two new medals for France. In par. Among the women, Manon Deketer (ESBM Judo) won three fights to reach the final, where we remember the well-prepared kata-guruma against the Dutch Geke Van Den Berg, 27th in the world and fifth the Austrian Grand Prix and the Grand Slam in Baku in the spring. In the final, Kirari Yamaguchi, 23, however, surprised the 2022 French world medalist with a perfect following ko-soto-gari in a standing-ground connection.
Yamaguchi, who should be watched throughout the Olympics: while Miku Takaichi failed again during the Olympics, Japan is looking for a new -63kg who can play for the first places. However, Kirari Yamaguchi, who attends Kokushikan University, has established himself as a serious contender for national leadership: winning the 2023 Summer University Games and the 2024 Asian Games, fifth in Paris at the beginning of February, here he is set. a new milestone in his trajectory at the highest level.
For Manon Deketer, does today’s result mark the beginning of a new cycle of regularity? Victim of a ruptured cruciate ligament during the 2023 French team championships in Laval, he won a second consecutive medal after gold at the European Open in Spain in June. She beat, here in Zagreb, two women (the Israeli Inbal Shemesh and Van Den Berg) who were better ranked than her.
Among the men, Arnaud Aregba, who moved from PSG Judo to US Orléans this summer, will be looking for his first medal on the IJF tournament circuit. Unique and very diverse judoka, Arnaud Aregba uses his entire technical palette to achieve a good day, between morote-seoi-nage, ko-uchi-gari, tsuri-goshi or ura-nage. A technique that allowed him to beat the Czech Adam Kopecky, a rival of his generation, for the bronze. In the end, only the muscular Victor Sterpu defeated the young Frenchman, with his hand-to-hand technique.
The Moldovan, suspended in 2023 for doping, who also won this Saturday.
At -70kg, it was a big day for Dutchwoman Sanne Vermeer, who climbed the category almost a year ago. In the first round, he defeated the 2023 French champion, Florine Soula (Stade Bordelais Judo) in an o-uchi-gari. In the last block, he defeated the Japanese Shiho Tanaka, world No. 15, in a variation of te-otoshi which he followed by immobilization. All twenty seconds from the end of the fight and while it was being fought.
In the final, she put a beautiful uchi-mata sukashi on the Israeli Maya Kogan, who defeated the local star of the day, Lara Cvjetko, world No. 10 and 2022 vice-champion – beaten by Barbara Matic, new Olympic champion -.
An interesting category since the Slovenian Kaja Schuster, 2023 European junior champion, and the Brazilian Kaillany Cardoso, double vice-world junior champion in 2022 and 2023, finished fifth.
At -73kg, it was the Hungarian Daniel Szegedi, whose last podium started at a European Senior Cup in June 2023, was the winner.
A category in which the Japanese Ryuga Tanaka, 2022 junior world champion – so he is a third-year junior – from the University of Tsukuba was disqualified for a waki-gatame during a unilateral grabbing against the Italian Giovanni Esposito.
A very annoying situation due to a literal interpretation of the arbitration rules, which we must hope will be only a bad memory in January 2025.