The morning session of the last day at the European Judo Championships Veterans Sarajevo 2024 delivered the remaining bouts of the Ne-waza sections of the tournament. Both Poland and Germany were able to celebrate two of this latest title whilst Sweden joined in single victory.
Daniela KORTMANN (GER) won the F4-FN -63kg category, following which she shared her joy in delight becoming the first female Ne-waza European Champion;
I am very happy about this. It was really interesting to fight in Ne-waza but now I am really happy that I won it. I will sure to fight next year again in Ne-waza. I really like Ne-waza so it was really nice to compete here today. I hope next year we will have more competitors but for now I am going to enjoy winning this European Championships.
Jimmy ANDERSSON (SWE) took gold in the M4-6N -100kg category, highlighting the importance of this event;
It was really fun today because I love Ne-waza and I hope we will have more competitions. I think this is addition allows judoka to show their Ne-waza skills as in the ordinary event there is a very short time given to progress in Ne-waza so I think this is a good addition to the judo community.
Dariusz KASPRZYK (POL), who admits to have a rather extensive BJJ background, excelled in the M4-6N -81kg category.
I feel happy, I am just disappointed that judoka was only able to compete in one event as I wanted to fight against the best people but lets hope for next year it will be possible to do both, the ordinary and the Ne-waza only. Other than that I really enjoyed myself today.
This year saw the inauguration of the Ne-waza event and the launch of the EJU Veteran Tour. Mr Ronnie SAEZ, EJU Education Director and responsible for the Veterans Commission, offers his feedback.
I think it has been a very exciting year for veteran’s judo and Europe. We have had several new projects commenced including the veteran’s tour which kicked off in Latvia in February. It has been successful and this becoming very popular so we started to plan for next year. Several countries expressed their interest in becoming part of the tour by hosting events and it was very positive and well received by the veteran judo community in Europe.
As per the Ne-waza competition, this is the first Ne-waza competition has ever been organised by EJU and as you can see it has been very successful. It is very much a new set of rules and in some respect experimental but it worked very well. The competitors, the spectators and the officials are all speaking positive about the development and again we feel that we will add this Ne-waza event to the tour at some point next year and Ne-waza will become a fixture of veteran competitions.
We had hundred more entries then at last year’s veteran Europeans so we are a growing event again and hopefully in Riga next year we will establish a new record of competitors. Lastly, I would like to thank the host, they have done a wonderful job, it is a fantastic facility and Sarajevo is a wonderful place.
The individual part of the event is officially concluded with France claiming the top spot of the overall medal table. Georgia and Germany followed in line. The remaining of the tournament will showcase the team events. Watch live online via judotv.com
Images: Dino Secic
Author: Szandra Szogedi