By Caoilte de Barra
The first day of the 2022 European Championships is in the books. The action got underway at 11 am local time, with the round of 32 taking place for seniors and the round of 16 for juniors.
Ukraine got off to a flying start to the competition with some of their Youth World medalists that have come through the ranks standing out from the crowd. Oleksandr Huliaiev scored a Triangle Choke finish in the opening round before Andrii Stoian won a split decision. Ivan Yushchenko added to their success later in the day with a decision win over Italy’s Fabio Condidorio.
Host nation Italy had ten athletes competing today, six of which came out with a win to advance. Samuel Rossi and Marco Galli impressed as both finished their opponents via submission. Rossi with a rear-naked choke and Galli with a kneebar.
England’s Jordan Little was in one of the best bouts of the day as he edged a decision win over 2021 World Cup winner Andrii Pashniuk. Wales enjoyed a successful day as three of their athletes progressed. Ellis Clement was up first, and he dominated his opponent before getting the finish three seconds from the end of round 2. Alex Gill and Ioan Harris added to the success by getting
Ireland’s Jordan Bradshaw pulled off a big victory over Ukraine’s Soltan Veliev, submitting him with a triangle choke to set up a bout with Daniyal Shamkhalov tomorrow. Jake Ngai was another Irish athlete that made his mark today. He showed some superb grappling before forcing the referee to step in after some relentless ground and pound.
In the final few bouts of the day, Israel’s Moshe Aladi edged Germany’s Min-Soo Song to close out cage 1. Over in cage 3, Belgium’s Patrick Habibora put his division on notice after finishing his opponent within nine seconds in what was arguably the performance of the day. A full list of today’s results can be found here.
Tomorrow sees the junior quarter-finals and senior round of 16 take place, with the bouts starting at 11 am. The full schedule for Day 2 of the 2022 European Championships can be found here. Live brackets can be found on Smoothcomp.
Watch the 2022 IMMAF European Championships live and exclusively from Bella Italia Efa Village in Lignano Sabbiadoro (Italy) from 27 September and 1 October 2022 at immaf.tv.
