Day two of the European Judo Open in Oberwart saw Wachid BORCHASHVILI (AUT) take the gold medal in the -81kg category. Borchashvili stormed to a first ever European Open gold medal with six wins, four of which were by ippon whilst not once giving up a single score. In all, the 21-year old can be proud of coming out on top of a category in which he defeated not only the number one seed Etinene BRIAND (CAN) but also the promising young Tokai student WATANABE Kamui (JPN).
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Three early wins by ippon put Borchashvili in a strong position to launch his assault on the later rounds. His quarter-final was against Watanabe and the Japanese was not about to gift a home win to the Austrian. But perhaps Watanabe was in a generous mood and he proceeded to collect three shidos that saw Borchashvili take his place in the semi-final. Briand was next up. But the Canadian failed to keep pace with the tempo of the contest and was frustrated by Borchashvili’s constant grip changing, particularly the one-sided maki komi attempts. Like Watanabe, Briand too collected three shidos whilst Borchashvili remained shido free to take his place in the final. Baptiste PIERRE (FRA) proved a difficult and worthy final opponent and it was only after 1:22 of golden score that Borchashvili was able to launch a massive ura nage for ippon to take the gold medal.
When asked to comment on his day Borchashvili said,
I am very happy with my performance today. Last week I injured my inner ligament on my left calf and I was not sure whether I would compete here in this home tournament. But I had some good strapping applied and I am very happy that I could fight today.
With regard to his most difficult contest of the day Borchashvili said,
The quarter-final was extremely hard. The Japanese had a very strong grip and was very uncomfortable for me to fight. But my tactic was to be more active then him and it worked well. After this fight I was totally motivated and I said to myself: Nobody will beat me today.
In response to a question about his family in judo Borchashvili said,
The bronze medal of my brother [Kimran] was a big motivation for me. He had a long lean spell, I feel very happy for him. I don’t see my brothers as rivals. We push and support one another. We all train in Linz with Klaus-Peter Stollberg. I am very pleased when they win medals and I am looking forward to fight with them on international level in the near future. My older brother will compete at the Grand Slam Düsseldorf next weekend and I will be there cheering him on. My father was born in Georgia, so I have some Georgian blood in me. So luckily it also means that Georgian fans also support me because of the name.
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Author: Sheldon Franco Rooks