“I draw the conclusion that even if it’s a little raw, at the moment, I’m not up to it.” After his elimination in the first round of the Paris Grand Slam at the beginning of February, Alpha Djalo began to sound the alarm. At the end of March, he repeated at the Antalya Grand Slam with a loss against the Bulgarian Georgi Gramatikov on an ippon. “I’m leaving as I came, it’s a non-match, there’s nothing to learn from it,” confided the main party. “I traveled, I prepared and I came for nothing. It’s been three competitions that I’ve been in the first rounds, so yes, there’s some doubt.”
In Zagreb, during the European Championships, Alpha Djalo hoped to chase away his inner torments and other questions. Three months before the Paris Olympic Games for which he is selected in his under 81kg category, the judoka needs confidence, and therefore success. Alas, he leaves Croatia with only one victory under his belt, obtained at the expense of the Greek Theodoros Demourtsidis. A painful victory, against the 93rd in the world whom he seemed likely to easily dominate with a waza-ari lead. But once again, Djalo did not know, or could, capitalize on this advantage and he let his opponent come back to his level, before still managing to pin him to the ground with an ippon after more than a minute and golden score half.
A success always good to take in such a scarcity but which hardly reassured in the way. And unsurprisingly, against the 2nd in the world in his category, Tato Grigalashvili, the Frenchman lost at the end of a dull fight, during which everything came down to penalties. In this little game, Alpha Djalo notably committed two faults for breaking his kumikata (taking the opponent’s kimono) and therefore disappeared in the 2nd round of these European Championships. To try to raise his head, the 20th in the world now only has the World Championships in Abu Dhabi from May 19 to 24.