Wrestlers Brad and Mike Robinson represented the DN Sumo Wrestling Club and Team GB at the prestigious Europa European Cup in Italy, writes Adam Lloyd.
Brad had a very hard pool draw and had to overcome two national champions and a former European champion in the men’s middleweight competition.
Brad beat Italian number one Renato Vinassa comfortably in the first match and then disposed of German number one Tijark Markmann in his second.
With other results going his way, it meant that Brad had qualified for the quarter-finals, before his last wrestle, as the top two from each pool qualified.
In his final pool match, Robinson faced Vroon, of Holland, and after a close fought bout Vroon’s attempt to throw Brad failed as Brad countered it in style sending Vroon to his first loss in more than a year.
Brad took on Italian Lagroia in the last eight and won in impressive style handing him a semi-final bout against Gulomaliev of Tajikistan. Again Brad rose to the occasion and beat Gulomaliev with ease.
In the final Robinson met Vroon again after the Dutch man fought his way to the final with ease. In a carbon copy of their first match Vroon attempted a huge throw, this time catching Brad off guard sending Robinson to the floor and receiving the silver medal.
Mike Robinson fought in the heavyweight competition and was making his international debut. Mike Breezed through his pool beating Christopher Fritz, of Austria, and Gothet Munkhitorov, of Taijkistan, easily - setting up a show down with Anders Faegri, of Norway, in the knockout stages.
Faegri, a great wrestler, started very uncharacteristically shy and Mike’s previous performances must have shuck the big Norwegian up. In typical fashion Mike powered through Faegri to meet Italian ‘golden boy’ Andreas Epiro in the final.
Mike gave no quarter and battered Epiro from the off, Epiro just couldn’t handle Mike’s power and was sent flying soon after the start to give Mike a gold - or so we thought. The referee gave the win to Robinson but the side judges controversially called a false start against Mike.
So a rematch was decided and this time Epiro had learned from his mistake as he managed to beat Mike to the gold. It was an awesome competition for Mike but he was left with a bitter taste in his mouth.