Sports roundup

A roundup of the main sporting events of the last weekend

Florin Orban, 06.11.2023, 13:45

The delegation, which represented Romania at the European Judo Championship held by the French city of Montpellier at the weekend, obtained no medal. Alex Cret obtained the best Romanian performance, a 7th place in the 90 kilogram category. He defeated Stuart McWatt of Britain in the first round and Bulgarian Ivailo Ivanov in the round of 16. The Romanian was eliminated in the quarters by Mihael Zgank of Turkey, who eventually became the bronze medalist.

The Romanians attempt to re-qualify was stopped in its tracks by Hungarian Krisztian Toth, who also became bronze medalist. Romania participated in the aforementioned event with four Judokas and the last medal obtained by the Romanians in European championships was a silver obtained by Andreea Chitu in the 52 kilogram category in 2020.

Romanias male handball side played two friendlies last week. On Thursday in Pdgorica, the Romanians were outperformed by Montenegro 38-28, while on Saturday in Toulouse they lost to France 21-40. We recall that France boasts three Olympic titles, six world trophies and three European.

The games were part of the training campaign for the European Championships due in Germany in January, when Romania will be part of group B together with Spain, Austria and Croatia. The Romanian handballers will go to the aforementioned competition as outsiders as Spain was European vice-champion in 2022 and Croatia in 2020. As for Austria, they have outperformed the Romanians in both qualifying games. Our handballers havent qualified for a European Championship since 1996.

Irina Bara and Dalila Jakupovic have won the doubles of the ITF tennis tournament in Heraklion, a competition with 40,000 dollars in prize money. The Romania-Slovenian pair defeated on Sunday, the Romanian-Greek pair Oana Gavrilă / Sapfo Sakellaridi, 3-6, 7-6, 10-8.

Last weekend saw the matches counting towards the 15th leg of the Romanian Football Superleague. On Friday in Iasi, local side Poli versus Otelul Galati ended in a one-all draw. Also in draws ended the games on Saturday pitching Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe against Petrolul Ploieşti, nil-all and Universitatea Craiova versus FC U Craiova 1948 one-all. On Sunday FC Voluntari won their away match against Universitatea Cluj 2-1, and Farul Constanţa obtained a one-all draw against FC Botoşani. In the legs derby Rapid Bucharest secured a 2-1 win against FCSB. FCSB ranks first in the standings with 31 points, followed by CFR with 30 and Rapid with 29.

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