The reason why Wimpassing’s judo ace Lisa Grabner became the young athlete of the month for July is no longer exactly known when she was honored due to the large number of successes this year. “I think it was because I won my tenth European Cup medal at the U21 European Open,” she says, and is spot on.
Supervised by Austria’s judo guru Adi Zeltner, she won bronze in Prague. She was only defeated by the three-time European junior champion from France, Faiza Mokdar, in the semifinals. All other fights, including the one for third place, were won by Grabner in less than a minute.
But in the wake of team colleague and Olympic hero Michaela Polleres, this success should only be the start of an extremely successful season for Grabner. Despite severe pain, she won bronze at the U-21 European Championships in Luxembourg and bought the ticket for the Junior World Championships.
Earned bronze at the European Championship despite injury
Already in the first fight at the EM against the Kosovar Fationa Kasapi she suffered a forearm injury, which got worse with every fight. Nevertheless, the Wimpassinger bit her way through to the golden score (extension), then won by choking. In the hope round, she gave the Italian Veronica Toniolo no chance.
In the meantime, the HSZ Seebenstein athlete has already made it through the Junior World Championships in Olbia, Italy, with two victories, even if the ambitious Grabner is not entirely satisfied with seventh place overall in the heavily occupied -57 kg weight class. Grabner was placed as number six.
In the duel between the two thirds in the European Championship, she lost the shortlist in the quarter-finals due to a diving technique used by the Turkish competitor. And in the battle for bronze it was again the now three-time junior European champion Mokdar who made life difficult for the NÖN district athlete. Finally, a shoulder throw was her undoing. “Both the newly crowned world champion Ksenija Galitskaia from Russia and the two World Cup third parties were drawn in Lisa’s pool, which made it almost impossible to get through,” explains head coach Adi Zeltner.
National coach Bela Riesz was happy about the only placement of an ÖJV judoka at this World Cup. In addition, there were 182 IJF world ranking points, which made Grabner move up to the top 100 in the women’s class AK. “This bonus comes at the right time, because from the coming season I will only be able to compete in the elite class due to my age,” she knows.
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