French judoka Julia Tolofua took the gold medal at the Grand prix in Zagreb in her heavyweight division. Tolofua is a member of the French women’s heavy weight school. She entered the final against Mercedesz Szigetvari (HUN), second a week ago in Sarajevo on the occasion of the European Open.
Julia Tolofua didn’t really have to produce a big effort as she just had to let Mercedesz Szigetvari make mistakes and collect the benefits. After the Hungarian judoka was penalised three times, Julia Tolofua could enjoy the taste of gold.
Croatia qualified another athlete, Tina Radic, for the final block. She faced Renee Lucht of Germany to win a place on the podium. Radic was dreaming of imitating her teammate Marko Kumric, but unfortunately she was defeated with an hold down, sending the medal to the German competitor.
The second Frenchwoman of the category, Laura Fuseau qualified against Helena Vukovic (CRO) for a place on the podium. No-one seemed to be able to find the slightest solution to throw until deep into the golden score period when Fuseau eventually applied a small o-uchi-gari to make her opponent react with a step back, leaving space for Fuseau to launch a strong left handed o-soto-gari for ippon, destroying Vukovic’s dream of a podium finish.