Isaac Bezzina, Marcon Bezzina and Murman Korchilava stepped up their preparations for this summer’s Commonwealth Games by competing in the European Cup in London before travelling to Antalya, Turkey, for an intensive training camp.

The European Cup, a ranking event, attracted 264 judokas from 27 countries. The Maltese team were under the charge of coach Lamberto Raffi.

Isaac Bezzina entered the -90kg category which was contested by 24 judokas.

His first bout was against eventual silver medallist Michel Verhagen, of the Netherlands. Bezzina began well but midway through the contest, Verhagen pulled off a wazari and an ippon to secure victory.

In the repechage, Bezzina was up against Briton Alan Mineards. The Maltese judoka took less than a minute to see off Mineards with an ippon.

Bezzina then faced Serbia’s Mateja Glusac in the play-off for seventh place. Glusac has a record of one gold, two silver and six bronze medals at the European Cup.

The contest was balanced with no serious attacks, thus resulting in both judokas receiving three shido (sanctions). The contestants were intent on avoiding another shido, which would have led to their disqualification, but Bezzina committed a mistake that opened the way for Glusac to clinch the win with an ippon.

Defeat was hard to take for Bezzina who was one bout away from entering the senior European ranking list. He placed ninth overall.

Marcon Bezzina featured in the -63kg category that drew an entry of 17 judokas.

Her first opponent was Italy’s Martina Epifani. Bezzina took Epifani into groundwork a couple of times, trying to close the contest with shime waza (strangulation).

The Maltese failed to subdue her opponent and in the last second of the bout, she was caught by Epifani in osaekomi (pinned on the ground) to lose the contest.

Epifani went on to reach the final and thus Bezzina was handed a second chance in the repechage. Her first contest was against Britain’s Kirsty Kee.

Bezzina was penalised a couple of times for leaving the contest area and in the last minute, she lost with osaekomi.

The -81kg class had the largest entry, 33 athletes. Korchilava was drawn in a very difficult pool. His first contest was against French Dimitri Gomes Tavares who has won two silver and two bronze medals at senior European Cup tournaments.

Gomes Tavares threw Korchilava for yuko and then ippon to progress to the next round.

Korchilava’s repechage contest was against experienced Briton Tom Reed, a former team-mate of Marcon Bezzina at Bath University.

Reed, a silver and bronze medallist in the U-23 European Championships, proved too strong for Korchilava, winning by superiority.