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Photo by Joao Gregoria
Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada
| Montréal, March 20, 2022 – British Columbia’s Nikola Petrovic had high expectations for himself at the Junior European Judo Cup in Coimbra, Portugal, and they were rewarded as he won a bronze medal in the under-100 kg weight class at his fourth international competition. “Honestly, I never had very high expectations at my previous competitions. But this time, I trained really hard, I’m in my best shape ever and I knew it was my turn to shine,” he explained. In the bronze medal final, France’s Marc Soumahoro was disqualified for unsportsmanlike behaviour during the semi-final, thus awarding the medal to Petrovic by forfeit. However, the 18-year-old Canadian claimed his best fight of the day was against Portugal’s Guilherme Silva in the repechage. “My hardest fight was the one right after I lost my pool final. Silva is as big as I am and very solid. I had a lot going on in my head, but I was able to focus. It was all or nothing at that point.” Petrovic then went on to beat Britain’s Gregor Miller to advance to the bronze medal final. Earlier, Petrovic had defeated Spain’s Antonio Sandino Ramos in his first fight of the day. He then incurred his only loss of the day against Francesco Basso of Italy, who won the other bronze medal. “I felt good against Basso, but an error cost me the match. I was able to move on from that, though, thanks to (coach) Sasha Mehmedovic’s help. After that, I took it one fight at a time and ended up with the bronze medal,” he added. |
