Today saw the second round of medal bouts with muaythai athletes including Anatoli Sukhanov and Angela Mamic taking gold.
As with yesterday, the medals were beautiful representations of Mongkons in gold, silver and bronze. This headgear is worn by all athletes during the ritual Wai Kru dance done at the start of each bout. And while the medals are always beautiful and carry strong memories, this is the first time they are so traditionally shaped.
One of the stand-out bouts was the 86kg men’s division between Mikhail Sartakov (Russia ) and Anatoli Sukhanov (Ukraine ) with Anatoli taking the gold.
In the last bout of the day Turkey also claimed a gold medal with Bugra Erdogan won at 91+ and Turkey also took three silver medals. One went to Bediha Tacyildiz in the women’s divisions at 67kg, losing out to Anastasia Nepianidi (Russia) – both women are former world champions, and the bout was tied at 19-all after two rounds so quite exciting.
The 60kg men’s medal went to Ildot Ismonov. He was Youth World Champion just two years ago so a huge cheer went up from the Russian contingent when the young athlete claimed gold at this level against a more experienced opponent Sofiane Meddar (France)
His team-mate Vasily Netreka (51kgs) took gold over Mikita Mironchyk (Belarus) in great bout, with Mikita fighting back hard in the 3rd round but left it too late to take the win.
More Photographs from the day – Czech Fighters Images
Just one more day to go, and definitely the athletes will be sad to leave beautiful Prague. With the action only starting in the afternoons, many of the athletes have taken the opportunity to visit the historic city centre. And of course today they also had the rare chance to see thousands of Harley Davidson motorbikes thronging the grounds of the pavilion.
Full results are available on IFMA Live and the programme with venue details etc is on EU Muaythai Prague.
The last bouts start at 14: 00 tomorrow and can be watched on the IFMA Youtube channel.
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Find out about the Harley Davidson 115 celebrations.
