MADRID, 1 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Judith Rodríguez won this Thursday the bronze medal in the épée modality at the Warsaw Wheelchair Fencing European Championship, also adding her valuable first points in the qualifying ranking for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
As reported by the Spanish Federation of Sports for People with Physical Disabilities (FEDDF), the woman from Vigo signed an unbeatable ‘poule’ with six victories against the French Cassiopee Bourgine (5-2) and Brianna Vide (5-2), the Turkish Elke Lale Van Achterberg (5-2), the British Emily Holder (5-0), the Italian Sofia Brunati (5-4) and the Ukrainian Nataliia Mandryk (5-4).
The Galician continued in tune in the elimination rounds where she defeated the French Clemence Delavoipiere and the Polish Kinga Drozdz, which allowed her to advance to the semifinals and secure the bronze. However, she could not improve that prize by falling in the semifinals with the Hungarian Amarilla Veres, Paralympic champion in Tokyo 2020.
“I am very happy with the result because it is a high-level competition, the best shooters are in Europe and I have entered the medals. In the semifinals my rival did better and beat me, but I leave with the feeling that I can be with the ones above,” Rodríguez celebrated.
The Spanish shooter recalled that “the road to Paris has just begun” and that this medal was “an important step” towards her “dream” of being in Paris in 2024. “Everything I have trained in this time has been reflected and now all that remains is to work and go for more”, he added.
This bronze medal confirms the good year 2022 for Judit Rodríguez, who had already been on the podium before this European Championship in two World Cup events, a gold last April in épée and the second a bronze in foil, also in Warsaw .
On the other hand, the shooter from Bilbao Begoña Garrido finished thirteenth in épée and nineteenth in saber, and Alex Prior from San Sebastian, twenty-fourth in foil.