Prague (AFP)

By each offering their second European coronation, Romane Dicko (+78 kg) and Madeleine Malonga (-78 kg) concluded an unprecedented female raid at the European Judo Championships, Saturday in Prague.

The French fighters got their hands on five of the seven categories.

Never before have the Bleues won so much European gold in a competition of a comparable format.

Promising eight months from the Tokyo Games postponed to summer 2021 under the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reassuring, too, at the end of a season largely turned upside down and shortened by the health crisis.

Dicko and Malonga, both crowned for the first time in 2018 but who remained for nine months without competition, imitated the young shoot Shirine Boukli (-48 kg), Clarisse Agbegnenou (-63 kg) and Margaux Pinot (-70 kg), who were adorned with gold before them in the Prague room.

Adding the bronze obtained by Sarah-Léonie Cysique (-57 kg) and Marie-Eve Gahié (-70 kg), seven of the nine French judokas leave the Czech capital with a medal around their neck.

Only Mélanie Clément (-48 kg) and Astride Gneto (-52 kg) did not glean any.

- "On fire" -

"We are really + we fire!" Malonga says. We don't cheat, we train hard. When we are serious, when we give our all, it necessarily pays off. "

"It's really nice to come back and make a raid. We savor these good times, and we will do everything to make sure there are more," she adds.

On the men's side, on the contrary, in the absence of heavyweight Teddy Riner, the honor is only saved by Kilian Le Blouch, in bronze in -66 kg.

None of the seven other blue fighters engaged even won more than one fight.

In total, the French delegation ends the three days of competition - its last in 2020 - with eight medals.

Dicko, 21 years old for less than two months, becomes the second youngest blue judoka (behind Catherine Pierre in the 1970s) to count two European titles so early.

Above all, she continues her revival, and the rapid rise in the world hierarchy that goes with it, after being deprived of competition for a year and a half, between mid-2018 and last November, because of a double injury to a shoulder and one knee.

"To find her today on the first step, it is a very particular emotion, recognizes the director of the teams of France Stéphane Traineau. During the two years that she was off the mats, I saw her in rehabilitation, very serious, all the time with a smile, with morale. She has never given up. From that point of view, she is exemplary. "

- "No wasted time" -

Obviously the outbreak of the new coronavirus has changed everything, but Dicko still ends 2020 with a clear round, after his victories at the Tel Aviv Grand Prix in January and at the Paris Grand Slam in February.

So much so that it will climb to the doors of the top 15 in the world.

"It's nice to come back on a mat and win after a lot of disappointment, smiles Dicko. All that time was not wasted time: I was able to polish things physically, tactically, technically ..."

In four fights on Saturday, Dicko offered himself two members of the world top 10, the Turkish Kayra Sayit (waza-ari) and the Bosnian Larisa Ceric (penalties), and one of the top 5, the Azerbaijani Iryna Kindzerska, dominated by ippon in less than two minutes in the final.

For Malonga (26), this reconquest of the European crown, one year after her world title and while she is world No.2 in her category, is one more step towards a first Olympic experience.

Her two competitors for the only sesame at stake, Fanny-Estelle Posvite, world No. 3 but hit in a shoulder, and Audrey Tcheuméo, double Olympic medalist but long behind, did not fight on the Czech tatami mats.

“The goal is clearly to be an Olympic champion,” Malonga assumes.

In the final, she was able to control an opponent against whom she had known three of her four defeats in 2019, the German Luise Malzahn: she imposed herself on penalties after three minutes of fighting.

She had won her two previous matches by ippon, after a slower start (penalties).

Without Riner, the heavyweight category gave rise to a 100% Russian final, snatched by Tamerlan Bashaev at the expense of Inal Tasoev.

© 2020 AFP