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“The draw was very unfavorable for me,” said Toma Nikiforov (IJF-22), after he was eliminated with waza-ari by the Georgian Lia Sulamanidze (IJF-1) at the European Judo Championships in Zagreb, Croatia.
Source: BELGA
Yesterday at 10:47 PM
Nikiforov, European champion in 2018 and 2021, had already had a tiring first match, which he only won after eight minutes and forty seconds, while the world number one was free in the first round of the class up to one hundred kilograms.
“The European Championships did not go well for me. The draw was very unfavorable for me. Nevertheless, I think I handled it well tactically and that it was not an easy camp for him either. I know I can beat him. You could see that at the end when he avoided the fight. He should have been punished for that.”
Nikiforov looks forward to the future with confidence. “I will continue to work hard to be in top shape for the world championships and especially the Olympic Games. I’ll be fighting again next week, at the Grand Slam in Tajikistan. It would be nice to get some points there, just to be completely sure, but I’m not too worried about Olympic qualification.”
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