UAE judoka Sergiu Toma is on The National Sport front page for Thursday, August 11, 2016 as he taps his heart and the UAE flag after defeating Italy's Matteo Marconcini in the 81-kilogram judo class to win the bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Read more: Judoka Sergiu Toma goes in history books with a bronze for country's second medal
Toma, 29, joins Sheikh Ahmed bin Hasher, who won gold in Athens in 2004, as the only Emiratis to make the podium at an Olympic Games.
To clinch the bronze, Toma defeated his Italian rival having already lost narrowly in the semi-finals to Russia’s Khasan Khalmurzaev in an identical fashion. Khalmurzaev went on to win the gold. America’s Travis Sevens took the silver.
Now he wants to target gold at Tokyo 2020. “Sure,” he says, “I will try for gold.”
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