Dojo Nantais / JC Chilly-Mazarin Morangis: 2-7 

 

Between these two low-ranked teams, who have yet to win a match this year, it was simply a question of staying in the Judo Pro League. A mission taken to heart by the eight fighters of JC Chilly-Mazarin Morangis, who were not to suffer a single defeat on Tuesday. In the first half, Aya Louchène (-52kg) varied between her tani-otoshi and ko-uchi-gari to dismiss Lalie Pousse, Richard Vergnes (-66kg) came back from two yukos down with a spectacular sode-tsuri-komi-goshi against Corentin Gendre, while Emma Benghezal (-63kg), seventh at the Cadet World Championships in 2024, won by one yuko against Lina Fachate. Combined with the hikiwake between Manon Burnel and Saféine Gues in -57kg and the forfeit victory of Nantes' Luka Tskhvediani (-73kg), the Essonniens were 3-1 up at the break. 

 

Levêque ready for Paris 

In the -81kg class, Spiros Eleftheriadis put on a festival of yukos, scoring three times in just over a minute before controlling the end of the bout against Yann Lecorre. Laura Hieu-Filet (-70kg) drove the nail in even further by forcing Inesse Chaima Abdelkader to retire on ude-garami, before Roméo Lévêque (+90kg), selected for the forthcoming Paris Grand Slam in the -100kg category, dispatched Gaylord Jolly with two effective snatches. With the second Chiroquois forfeit in the -90kg class and the Nantes clan forfeit in the +70kg class, the result was a clear 2-7 for the JCCMM, who will finish the elimination phase in twelfth place, while Nantes will be one of the teams relegated this year. 

 

JC Pontault-Combault / AC Boulogne-Billancourt: 4-4 

 

In Seine-et-Marne, while hosts JC Pontault-Combault were also looking in the rear-view mirror for a repeat performance next year, AC Boulogne-Billancourt, the unbeaten promoted team, were looking for a win that would give them a quarter in their gymnasium Souriau. With a busload of Boulonnais on hand to support them away from home, it was the Orange et Noir who took the duel by the scruff of the neck, buoyed by the two bronze medallists - and quarter-finalists - from the last Paris Games, Haruka Funakubo (-57kg) and Sarah-Léonie Cysique (lined up in the -63kg category), who respectively dominated Dutchwomen Shannon Van de Meeberg and Mélodie Turpin. Between these two bouts, Cysique's younger brother William, lined up for Pontellois, drew with Eliot Prévé in the -73kg class, as did Mark Van Dijke and Yoann Benezra in the -90kg class at the start of the second half. The home side's first point came from Joshua De Lange (-81kg), who scored waza-ari on a makikomi before seeing his opponent Sébastien Isarno concede a third penalty, but Lucie Jarrot (-70kg) gave the Hauts-de-Seine team some breathing space by outclassing recent national medalist Laura Haberstock's uchi-mata, before trapping her at the end of the bout with a uki-waza. 

 

Marchand and Spijkers sound the alarm 

This lead melted like snow under the sun in the +70kg and +90kg bouts, when Valentine Marchand, already at her best at the French championships in Saint-Étienne in mid-December, rolled up Emma Saudrais, and Jur Spijkers, the fourth reinforcement from the Netherlands, «atomized» Ukrainian Yevheniy Balyevskyy with a supersonic harai-goshi on his partner's advance. Two strong impacts put JC Pontault-Combault (3-3, 300-210) in the lead for the first time in the match. Boulonnaise Léonie Gonzalez (-52kg) was not to be denied, however, and after some good ground work, she delivered an unstoppable juji-gatame to Clémentine Roger. Anything was still possible in the final bout, pitting Mohamed-Lamine Degnouche, runner-up in the French 2e division 2024, and Anatole Guillard, French junior champion that same year. After two minutes of observation, it was the former who came out on top, with two o-uchi-gari to the left, scored yuko. Insufficient to turn the tide, but enough to fire up the crowd, who believed in him like a house on fire. All the more so as Anatole Guillard, focused on his match and not on the total score of the match, embarked wholeheartedly on hand-to-hand sequences... And rightly so, as he in turn scored yuko on ko-uchi-gake before holding out until the gong to set his team free. Mission accomplished for the ACBB, the third-placed team to reach the quarter-finals in the company of RSC Montreuil and Arts Martiaux Saint-Gratien. 

 

 

FLAM 91 / Judo Nice Métropole: 2-3 

 

To join these three formidable debutants in the top 4, all that remained was to await the outcome of the unbeaten duel between FLAM 91 and Judo Nice Métropole. The first two bouts - Lou Lemire / Rania Drid (-63kg) and Kaïs Guettari / Sacha Gigli (-81kg) - ended in goalless draws. In the -70kg class, Laura Duchaussoy, winner of three Label Excellence junior tournaments in 2025, defeated two-time French senior champion Florine Soula with a perfectly executed ippon/o-soto-gari after less than thirty seconds. All was to be done again when Georgian Irakli Beroshvili (-90kg), knocked down by Ibrahim Keita's sumi-gaeshi, pounced on the opportunity to conclude with an immobilizer. Essonne's Bintibe Lang (+70kg) then held off Grâce-Esther Mienandi Lahou, before Francis Damier (+90kg) took advantage of the absence of a heavyweight in Nice's ranks to give his team the lead again at the interval.  

 

Raphaël Gigli's final words 

While there was no victory in either the -52kg (Shirine Boukli/Léa Métrot) or -57kg (Chloé Devictor/Ophélie Vellozzi) classes, the -66kg point fell in the lap of Abdesalem Khiri, who swept aside Seima Louette. 2-2, 200 points all round, before Léon Muteba and Raphaël Gigli - back on the Côte d'Azur this summer from... FLAM 91 - entered the fray... Less active than his young opponent, who was up like never before, the southerner conceded two penalties, before countering his kata-guruma attempt to tackle him on the shoulders. The video referee awarded him a waza-ari on this action, an advantage he managed to hold until the end of regulation time. Delight in the Côte d'Azur camp, who will be hosting the quarter-finals, and gloom in the Essonne camp, who will have to earn their place in the Final Four away from home in a month's time.