Bronze medals and victories over legends for Laura and Achilles

Kosovo has also won two medals in the European Judo Championship that is being held in Montpellier, France. On Friday, Distria Krasniqi won the silver medal, while Nora Gjakova won the bronze. Laura Fazliu and Akil Gjakova added two bronze medals on Saturday. Thus, Kosovo ends the continental championship with four medals, while participating with six judokas.

Laura and Akili's path to the podium makes the balance even more impressive. In the category up to 63 kilograms, Laura defeated the French legend Clarisse Agbegnenou in the quarterfinals. The French woman is one of the greatest judokas in history. He has Olympic gold medals and six world gold medals, among others. Laura beat him with the uazar, namely with a beautiful throw in extra time. But the Kosovar judoka, who was the first runner-up in the category, completely dominated Agbegnenou.

Laura started the day with a victory over Ukrainian Yuliia Hrbenozhko. In the semi-final, he was surprised by Slovenia's Andrea Leshki, who achieved Ippon. In fact, Leshki made a throw in the counterattack at the moment when Laura was heading for victory. For the bronze medal Laura defeats the Portuguese Timo Barbara. So she made another beautiful throw to win with Ippon.

Laura has defeated the French Agbegnenou in the two matches so far. The 23-year-old already has two European medals. He was runner-up last year.

Akil Gjakova also won the second European medal. He was European champion in 2021. Akili was not a carrier in the category up to 73 kilograms. He started the day with a special victory. He defeated the judoka who represents Serbia, Bajsangur Bagajev, with a win. He defeated the Bulgarian Mark Hristov with two rounds in the third round.

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In the quarterfinals, Gjakova lost with Ippon from Moldovan Petru Pelivan. But he continued his journey to the medal.

He defeated the Hungarian Daniel Szegedi in the first fight of the repechage with two fights for a little more than a minute. In the fight for bronze medals, he faced the world judo legend, Lasha Shavdatuashvili. The judoka from Georgia has three Olympic medals, one of them gold. He also has a world title and many European medals.

But he was inferior to Akil Gjakova on Saturday. Achilles completely dominated. On three occasions, he came close to making beautiful shots, before making one in overtime.

He won by a landslide after almost six minutes of fighting for the big party together with coach Driton Kuka. With Shavdatuashvili, Akili now has a balance of three wins and four losses.

Loriana Kuka also competed on Saturday. In the category up to 70 kg, Loriana beat the Swede Anna Bernholm in the first round. Then in the second round she lost to the Dutch Sanne Van Dijke. The Dutch woman was the first bearer, while she won bronze medals in the end.

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Now Kosovo has a total of 23 medals from the European Championships for seniors. Grandmaster Driton Kuka's judokas have regularly won European medals since 2013.

The form shown in Montpellier gives great hope for further success at the Olympic Games. It is no coincidence that the European Championship was held in France, where the summer Olympics are held next summer. In "Paris 2024", Kosovo aims for other medals. The European proved that Kuka's students are on the right path.