Greece celebrates its first medal in 59The European Men’s Women’s Karate Championship, as the Konstantinos Mastrogiannis advanced to the final of the -84k Kumite category. At the same time, the bronze medal will be claimed by Georgina Xenou in the “small” Kata final.
One of the biggest thrillers in the annals of the European Championships took place in the “Krezimir Cosic” hall of Zadar. In the semi-final of the -84k category. the Croat Ivan Kvezic, world champion and holder of five European medals, “welcomed” Mastroiannis in front of his audience. With three seconds to go, Kvezic won three points to make it 6-3 and spark celebrations in the stands as a place in the final looked certain. But, in exhalation, specifically at two-tenths of a second, Mastrogiannis with an amazing jump equalized 6-6 and took the victory by sensu (he had won a point first)!
Thus, the champion of Doxa Galatsiou will claim the gold medal on Saturday (around 13:30 Greek time) against the Dutchman Timmermans. To get there, he had won his pool, winning back-to-back the Latvian Sadikoffs, the Kosovar Aidari and the Spanish Molina, before crossing paths with the Croatian champion, a big favorite in the category and No. 6 in the World Ranking.
Earlier, the Georgina Xenou of AS Odysseus had set his sights on a very big distinction, in the demanding and open Kata category. With impressive performances in the 1st (38.00 points) and 2nd round (38.70 points) she claimed qualification to the final against her opponent Dilara Bozan (Turkey), the leading European in kata with 9 European individual medals. Xenou was defeated in the details (39.00 b., against 39.20 b.) and thus on Saturday (16:30 Greek time) she will fight for the bronze medal against her opponent Yasmin Yutner (Germany).
Also, on today’s first day of the games, Konstantina Chrysopoulou (-61k), Stavroula Oraiopoulou (-68k), Thanos Nikopoulos (+84k) and Vangelis Seremetakis (-75k) participated from the Greek side and made remarkable appearances .) who is awaiting the development of his category for the case of participation in repechages.
Tomorrow (Thursday) he enters the “battle” of -60k. the World Champion Stefanos Xenos, while Lambros Markesinis (Kata), Giorgos Baliotis (-67kg), Stelina Tzilia (-50kg) and Maria Stoli (-55kg) are also competing.
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