In the first round, Paško won against Russian Ibrahim Abdulkerimov 25:12; in the quarterfinals, he was better than Ukrainian Lipatov 20:12, and in the semifinals, he defeated Spaniard Perez Campos 16:0. However, the final duel against Turkish national Demirci was uncertain until the very end of the fight when Demirci managed to separate at 20:10 and win the title of European champion.
Thus, taekwondo club Marjan remained on two medals at the U21 European Championship, more precisely two European silver medalists – Josip Bilić Pavlinović in the category up to 87 kilograms and Paško Božić in the plus 87 kilograms. Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that Paško and Josip were sparring partners to Toni Kanaet and Ivan Šapina during the complete preparation for the Olympic Games, which certainly made progress and used that time of preparation to improve themselves on the way to the European finals.
The European Cadet Championship was held in the same hall, where the Marjan Taekwondo Club reached a set of medals – gold for Magdalena Matić, silver for Petra Mršić, and bronze for Tee Božić. The Split club thus returns from Estonia five medals richer.
This year, the club reached a record 11 medals in the same year. After the European Senior championship with three European champions Lena Stojković, Bruno Vuletić, and Matea Jelić, and bronze medalist Ivan Šapina, Matea Jelić won gold and Toni Kanaet bronze at the Tokyo Olympics. Still ahead for TK Marjan’s athletes this year is the European Junior Championships and the World Deaf Championships, where they will surely have athletes eager to climb the podium.
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