Egypt captured one judo gold and two bronze medals in the World Cup in Cairo. Ghada Abdel-Kader reports Egypt's judoka Islam El-Shehabi struck gold and Karim Darwish and Hussein Hafiz took two bronze medals in the 2010 Judo World Cup held in Egypt. In the +100 kilogramme category, El-Shehabi began in Pool A by beating Abu-Bakr Rakhmanov from Tajikistan. He then overcame Germany's Matthias Schmunk before defeating Russia's Sergey Prokin, the winner of Pool B. In the 100kg category, Darwish beat Movlud Miraliyev from Azerbaijan before losing to Russian Roman Polosin. In the repechage round, Darwish beat China's Ning Shao and Daniel Hadfi from Hungary. In the 73kg category, Hafiz beat Amil Gasimov from Azerbaijan and Hungary's Ervin Horvath. In the repechage round, Hafiz beat Austria's Peter Scharinger. "In preparation for this tournament, the federation was given LE500,000 by the National Sports Council," president of the Egyptian Judo Federation (EJF) Essam Rashad said. In the general ranking, Egypt came in sixth place with one gold, two bronze medals and five honorary places in the women's events and six honorary places in the men's events. "Previously, it was very difficult for Egypt to win a medal on the international level. This time they gave a good performance. In the last two years, our main concern has been to win medals. We hit our target and we reached the gold medal," Rashad said. The championship, held at the Police Sports Federation from 15-16 May, included Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Libya, Lithuania, Mongolia, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, Russia, Slovenia, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Yemen and host country Egypt. The tournament comprised 400 men and women players from 28 countries from five continents. Egypt did not enjoy the services of Hesham Mesbah, bronze medalist in the Beijing Olympics, who suffered a leg injury in a recent championship in Germany. "Mebash had a knee operation, travelled to Germany to complete his medical treatment, then returned to Egypt six days ago and will resume training with his teammates soon," added Rashad. Rashad told Al-Ahram Weekly the EJF's agenda was totally full. "We are preparing for the Arab Judo Championship in September and the World Master Championship in November which Egypt will host and which is a gift from the International Judo Federation. This is in addition to Grand Slam championships in Russia and Spain." The "gift" was presented because of Egypt's World Cup performance and success in its staging. However, a team of experts from the IJF must first inspect the facilities here before giving the green light.
