By press release

The Semi-Finals of the 2021 IMMAF European & Junior European Open Championships have concluded for today in Kazan, Russia, as the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation prepares for its Championship Finals and Medals Ceremony tomorrow, Friday 20 August.

Matches from IMMAF’s nation vs nation tournaments are being live-streamed daily on immaf.tv from 11am (UTC+3) with an estimated daily runtime of 6 hours.

See attached the Semi-Finals Results and Finals Schedule

Highlight matches in the seniors today saw the following outcomes for IMMAF’s Rising Stars:

A Rising Stars clash saw the biggest upset of the tournament, as 2019 World Champion Sabrina Laurentina De Sousa of Bahrain (via Brazil) defeated two-time Oceania and 2019 World Champion Michelle Montague, who is also a member of New Zealand’s National Olympic wrestling team. The judges unanimously awarded the women’s featherweight victory to De Sousa.

The judges meted out another upset that saw rising star Jenni Kivioja (Finland) lose by spilt decision to Mariya Shirkanova (Russia) in the women’s lightweight category.

2019 Asian Open gold and World silver medallist, Ayan Tursyn of Kazakhstan, defeated Martina Corradi (Italy) with a stunning spinning back fist in the women’s strawweight category.

#1 pound-for-pound and World Champion, Ramazan Gitnov of Bahrain, again won by Unanimous Decision, defeating Evgeny Morozov from Russia at welterweight.

Junior World and European champion and former #1 junior atomweight, Magdalena Czaban (Poland) beat Inas Ashirbek (Kazakhstan) by TKO in her first major senior semi-finals.

Also moving to senior, 2019 Junior World and European Champion Omar Aliev took fellow Russian, Maksim Kotelnikov, to the scorecards to win by Unanimous Decision at heavyweight.

IMMAF President Kerrith Brown said: “More highly competitive and compelling bouts in the semi-finals today with some narrow upsets paving the way for new faces to watch. It’s great to see how stacked the divisions are in terms of talent, which will no doubt lead to some exciting rematches at the Worlds. Again, congratulations to the winners who now move onto the finals to battle for gold, and also to today’s resulting bronze medallists.”

Tournament Information

For live brackets, daily matches schedule and results information, register for free at mynextmatch.com and go to the 2021 Senior European Championships and the 2021 Junior European Championships, respectively, in the ‘Event Finder’.