Croatian team is in the finals after winning the semifinals against the home team of France, with some unusual exercise before the matches.
Although Croatian Karate team had many problems in Montpellier, France, female Kumite team has reached the finals of the competition on May 6, 2016. Ana Lenard and Ivona Tubić, who will have their bronze medal singles matches tomorrow, were joined by Azra Saleš and Ana-Marija Bujas Čelan for the teams event and reached the finals of the European Championships.
And they did it in style; in the first round, they beat Bosnia and Herzegovina 2-1, then Sweden 2-1 while the Swiss team was defeated 2-0 in the quarterfinals. The toughest task came up in the semifinals, as the opponent was the strong home team, with the support of the crowd, but Croatians did it in first two battles, winning 2-0. They will face Azerbaijan in the finals on Saturday evening.
Male Kata team has done well too, as we predicted yesterday, reaching the bronze medal match which is scheduled on Sunday morning. Tomislav Stolar, Ivan Ermenc, and Damjan Padovan will face Russia for the bronze.
We wrote yesterday about the problems of the Croatian team, and here is one more, reported by Croatian Television. As the team was in front of the hotel, getting ready to enter the bus taking them to the venue yesterday morning, they noticed that parked cars were blocking the way for the team bus. As it was a holiday in France yesterday, it was impossible to get the towing service. So some unplanned exercise was in order, as you can see in the photo:
Cars were moved manually, and Croatian Karate team proved that even in poor conditions provided for them by the Olympic Committee, they are ready to do more than expected of them. At the conditions given, one medal is sure, and four more are possible, so nothing is left for us to do but to praise the athletes for their achievements.
