Croatian national team karateka Anđelo Kvesić defended his title at the prestigious international "Super Eight" tournament, hosted by Zagreb. The competition was held in the sports hall in Trnsko, marking Kvesić's third title at the event.
Kvesić won the tournament ten years ago, last year and this year. In the red group, he defeated Italian Matteo Fiore 4-0, Russian Kiril Kovalev 1-0 and Georgian Melabia Gelašvili 2-0 to secure first place in the group. Croatian karateka Enes Garibović was also a three-time consecutive winner in the previous decade, from 2017 to 2019, and Kvesić and Garibović were this year's Croatian participants in the prestigious tournament.
In the blue group, Garibović finished third. He beat Italian Simone Marini 2-0, but suffered defeats against Bosnia and Herzegovina's Anes Bostandžić 0-1 and Japan's Keisei Sakiyama 0-2. For the first time in the history of the "Super Eight" tournament, the final match was not held because Anes Bostandžić had to withdraw from the final bout due to injury.
Anđelo Kvesić thus achieved the eighth consecutive triumph for Croatian representatives at the tournament. In the bronze medal match, Japan's Sakiyama defeated Georgia's Gelašvili. Russia's Aleksander Gerunov has the most titles with five, while the first winner of this tournament in 1996 was France's Christophe Pinna. Besides Anđelo Kvesić and Enes Garibović, Croatian winners of this tournament have been Junior Lefevre, Pero Vučić and Ivan Kvesić.
