During this “manly” face-to-face between two judokas who had not yet met, our compatriot was enterprising, but did not succeed in destabilizing his opponent. Worse: Toma made a small mistake when, on his knees, he only held the Tajik with one hand, which the latter took advantage of to turn him onto his side.
The home crowd chanted “ippon, ippon, ippon”, but the referee “only” awarded waza-ari. Unfortunately, with sixteen seconds left on the clock, Toma no longer had time to restore the situation, especially as the fatigue of a hard day had taken over him.
The Brussels resident qualified for this “small final” by beating the Mongolian Batkhuyag (24 years old/n°10) during the repechage.
There is no doubt that Toma would have preferred to win otherwise than due to his opponent's injury after thirty seconds. But he would also have liked to lose differently against the representative of the United Arab Emirates, Kostoev (25 years old/n°15), in the quarter-finals.
Trailing, Toma found himself, mid-fight, in a movement where the two judokas tried to lift each other. While he thought he had scored, our compatriot saw the referee award the point to his opponent who, as a result, won by ippon!
And Toma left the tatami, crying out for injustice…
Previously, the Brussels resident had dismissed the Briton Thompson (27 years old/n°51) and the Tajik Abdurakhmonov (19 years old/n°105). Facing the first, he had caused a scare by being led, but he restored the situation by knocking his rival to the ground.
Then, Toma left no chance for the young Tajik, whom he knocked down first time, then a second time, after two and a half minutes of fighting, giving a thumbs up to his coach… Koen Sleeckx.
