Galery

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With a bronze medal finished Greece its participation in the European Championship in taekwondo for men and women, held in St. Petersburg, Russia from May 12^th to 15^th.

In the very beginning the Greek athlete Marios Tsurdinis reached the semifinals and qualified on the third place in the 58 kg category. The success of Tsurdinis is undoubtedly great. According to the Greek media, however members of the Greek delegation complain that Tsurdinis deserved to take a higher position, but was unfairly assessed by the judges.

During the first round Tsurdinis won by 1-0 against the contestant Ivan Zrinusich from Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the second round he defeated the Belgian Jeremy Les Duke with 10-6. In the semifinals he had no trouble to break the resistance Lyran Malahi from Israel with 9-4. His further victory, however, was halted in the semifinals by the Russian Alan Nogaev. Nogaev defeated the Greek with 12-9.

In the 54 kg category Vlasis Petropoulos won in the first round with a 8-2 against Ihar Leanovich from Belarus. Later, however, Petropoulos was defeated by the German Sergei Colm with 14-12 and like this he was ranked fifth.

From the women in 49 kg category Fotini Birba won in the first round by 7-6 against the Danish Sandra Bolgan Christensen. In the second round however Birba was defeated by the Frenchwoman Yasmina Azie with 8-1.

In the 46 kg category Ioann Kutsu did very good and during the first round defeated by 22-9 the Cypriot Stavroula Yosifaki. In the subsequent meetings the Greek was defeated by the Turkish Rukie Gildaram and thus dropped out from further charts and she took fifth place.