Azerbaijan’s karate team experienced a difficult opening day at the European Karate Championships in Frankfurt, with Olympic silver medallist Irina Zaretska among the notable names to miss out on a place in the final, İdman.Biz reports.
The Tokyo 2020 silver medallist and former world and European champion began strongly in the women’s 68kg category, defeating Armenia’s Lena Gulumyan 9-5 before suffering a 4-2 defeat against Croatia’s Sadea Becirovic in the next round.
Zaretska later responded in the repechage by beating Era Kocaj of North Macedonia 4-0 to keep her bronze medal hopes alive. She will now face Spain’s Maria Nieto, last year’s European Championship finalist in Yerevan, in Saturday’s bronze medal bout.
The standout performer for Azerbaijan on the opening day was Gulay Orujova in the women’s 61kg division. Orujova produced a series of impressive victories over Belgium’s Maryam Ajara, Hungary’s Aishe Zakiya Harspataki and Spain’s Mar Trenado Martinez before losing 4-1 in the semi-finals to Altana Basangova, competing under the EKF-1 designation.
Orujova will now fight Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Emina Sipovic for bronze on Saturday.
Elsewhere, Aysel Gasimova (+68kg) won her opening bout against Ireland’s Shauna Mahon but was later eliminated by Montenegro’s Jovana Damjanovic. Asiman Gurbanli (+84kg) defeated opponents from Spain and Armenia before losing to three-time European champion Anđelo Kvesić of Croatia in the quarter-finals.
Turgut Hasanov also reached the quarter-finals in the men’s 84kg division after victories over Slovakia’s Simon Seckar and Serbia’s Vladimir Brejancic, but his campaign ended following defeat to Croatia’s Ivan Kvesić.
Rashid Suleymanov remained in medal contention through the repechage after his opening-round opponent reached the final. However, the Azerbaijani karateka eventually lost to Ernest Sharafutdinov of EKF-1.
There was also disappointment in kata as four-time European bronze medallist Roman Heydarov suffered an early exit against Germany’s Maurice Telochke.
Azerbaijan are represented by 23 athletes at the 61st edition of the European Championships, which features nearly 500 karatekas from 50 countries. The tournament will conclude on 24 May.
