There were many familiar faces at Arena Hills past days during the European Judo Championships Kata 2024. However, there were also new members joining the event. For the first, Greece attended the event at such caliber. Nikolaos PAPARIS, International and European kata judge and well as kata coach in Greece explains the why’s and how’s?
Kata in Greece started in 2018 and since then all the coaches like it very much. Every year we do the national championships with 66 couples. Now we will start to do 3 tournament per year, one in south and one in north of Greece and the national championships. This is the first time we had judoka at the kata Europeans, they did well, not made it to the final but performed very well.
I did kata since I was a child, I love kata that’s why I make the decision to make kata in Greece a reality. It has been growing. We working on promotion constantly. It is a pleasure to be here, to see friends. Kata is a very nice, civilised way of doing judo. We are happy to be able to join this event.
Welcome to the kata judo family.
Author: Szandra Szogedi