The Frenchwoman won the repechage final against Austrian Michaela Polleres.
Margaux Pinot won the bronze medal in the under 70 kg category at the European Judo Championships on Saturday in Sofia. The 28-year-old Frenchwoman, European champion in 2019 and 2020, dominated Austrian Michaela Polleres, Olympic vice-champion in Tokyo, in the repechage final.
Little endangered in the fight for bronze, she won by ippon, thanks to a second waza-ari a few seconds from the end. For her morning start, Pinot had beaten the Romanian Serafima Moscalu, then the Turkish Minel Akdeniz. In the quarter-finals, she lost to another Frenchwoman, Marie-Eve Gahié, before recovering in repechage against Sweden’s Ida Eriksson.
Pinot took part in her first major championship since the resounding legal case which opposes her to her former coach and companion Alain Schmitt, whom she accuses of domestic violence and who was present in Sofia as coach of the Bulgarian team.