MADRID, 10 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
This Friday, Adrián Vicente from Madrid gave the third medal to the Spanish delegation present at the European Taekwondo Championships, which is being held in Belgrade (Serbia), by winning bronze in the -58 kg category.
Vicente took the podium months after competing in the Paris Olympic Games, adding this continental success to the gold medal achieved by Adriana Cerezo in -49 kg and the bronze medal by Joel Martín in -58 kg K44 of the event for athletes with disabilities.
The one from UCAM, champion in last year’s European Games and current World Cup bronze medalist of this weight, now started in Belgrade as the first seed in a field with 27 competitors. And that status allowed him to start his journey directly in the round of 16.
In that round he beat the Albanian Ernest Merdanaj 2-1 and then in the quarterfinals he beat the Turkish Omer Faruk Dayioglu by the same result. In the next match, Vicente fell 0-2 against the Serbian Lev Korneev, but his presence in the semifinals assured him a bronze.
In -87 kg, the Galician Sergio Troitiño said goodbye in the quarterfinals after losing 2-1 to the Turkish Enbiya Taha Bicer. The same fate had the same fate for Alma Pérez, also from Galicia, who was eliminated after losing 0-2 to the Russian Tatiana Minina in the quarterfinals of the -53 kg category.
The Spanish performance during this day of the European Championship was completed with another elimination, also in the quarterfinals. It was from another Galician taekwondo player, Tania Castiñeira, in the +73 kg category when she was defeated 2-1 at the hands of the German Lorena Brandl.