Switzerland’s Nils Stump on Tuesday stormed to a maiden gold medal in the men’s under 73KG final when he beat Italy’s Manuel Lombardo on day three of the World Judo Championships.Stump, 26, exhibited class under pressure to clinch the gold against the European champion at Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiyah Arena. Earlier, Stump delivered an ippon to beat Japanese star Soichi Hashimoto. Stump produced wonderful ashi waza to reach the final which he later won convincingly. Hashimoto, the 2017 world champion, on Tuesday claimed bronze against Murodjon Yuldoshev of Uzbekistan.Prior to yesterday’s final, neither Italy nor Switzerland ever won a world title. Sergei Aschwanden (2003) and Eric Born (1993) have won silver medals for Switzerland.Ezio Gamba (1979, 1983), Francesco Bruyere (2005), Matteo Marconcini (2017), Christian Parlati (2022) and yesterday’s finalist, Lombardo (2021) have won silver medals for Italy.President of the Swiss Judo Federation, Aschwanden on Tuesday said he was proud of the achievement."Nils progressed from year to year and he won on experience and stability,” Aschwanden said. "His performance was tremendous and it shows with work and confidence you can go very far. The work between Nils and Alexei shows us how important it is to have trust and a good relationship to have big results,” Aschwanden said."Congratulations to Alexei. Hopefully this title will help our sport to develop and gain members, we as a federation have to work on it,” he told the European Judo Union website.Earlier yesterday, Christa Deguchi of Canada clinched the gold in the women’s under-57KG class by beating Japan’s Haruka Funakubo. The 27-year-old also picked up a gold at Jerusalem Masters last December. This was Deguchi’s second gold in four years.Delivering a sensational performance, Deguchi gave her Japanese opponent no chance to settle down from the start. She produced two phenomenal off-the-grip attacks; first with a hopping o-uchi-gari inside the first minute, before hurling her opponent through the air with a cross-grip ashi-guruma in the second.Canada’s Jessica Klimkait and Mongolia’s Enkhriilen Lkhagvatgoo settled for the bronze. The May 7-14 championships will continue today with competitions in the -81KG (men’s) and -63KG (women’s).
May 09, 2023 | 11:56 PM