On Saturday, July 1, Ukrainian athletes, after several days of “lull”, finally replenished their collection of medals at the European Games in Krakow, Poland.
“Gold” was won by our boxer Oleksandr Khizhnyak. In the weight category up to 80 kg, our compatriot, nicknamed the Poltava Tank, knocked out the Georgian Georgy Kushitashvili in the third round on the way to the finals, and also confidently coped with the Greek Michal Tsamalidis (5:0), the Irishman Kelin Cassidy (3:0) and the Italian Salvatore Cavallaro (5:0). In the decisive match, Oleksandr met the Croatian Gabriel Veocic, putting him to sleep already in the second round and causing a flurry of applause from the Ukrainians gathered in the hall.
Let’s add that this is already the second “gold” for Khyzhnyak at the European Games – four years ago, in Minsk, he also became the best, however, defeating the Italian Cavallaro (5:0) in the final.
She stopped a step away from a big sensation women’s beach soccer team of Ukraine. Oleksandr Klymenko’s wards, after losing in the group to Spain (4:6) and beating Italy (2:1), sensationally proved to be stronger than Portugal in the semi-finals (3:1) and reached the final. The yellow-and-blues came close to getting revenge in Spain in the decisive match, but, leading the score, conceded to their opponents with 45 seconds left in regulation time. Already in the extra time, our girls managed to take the lead again – and again at the last minute, the Spaniards managed to equalize the situation. And in the series of post-match penalties, success has already followed our rivals.
In the end, the Ukrainian coffers were replenished with “bronze” thanks to the kickboxer Artem Melnik, who competes in the weight category up to 86 kg (full contact). In the semi-finals, our compatriot narrowly lost to the Spaniard Muhammed Hamba (1:2) and could not continue the fight for the top class award.
Thus, before the final competition day at the European Games, the national team of Ukraine, having won 39 awards (20 gold, 11 silver, 8 bronze), is on the third line of the medal tally. Higher (by the number of “gold”) only Italy – 90 awards (28–24–38) and Spain – 53 (20–14–19).
Earlier, FACTS reported that Ukraine broke its own record at the European Games.
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