Once again, Croatia will traditionally gather the best cadets from all over the world. From March 11th to 12th, the 15th European Cup will be held in Zagreb.
Just as it was in the era before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Croatian Judo Federation is once again ready to host a record number of competitors, which today counts 894 from 35 different countries.
The President of the Croatian Judo Federation and IJF Executive member, PhD. Sanda ČORAK is also aware of that the European Cadet Cup in Zagreb is one of the most important competitions in the calendar of the European Judo Union, and commented:
The 16th Cadet Cup in Croatia awaits us this weekend, we are extremely looking forward to it because even though we already achieved the record in 2017 with 790 competitors, this year we will probably exceed that record with 894 competitors coming to us from as many as 35 countries from two continents. The Croatian Judo Federation is known as the organiser of many international competitions, and the Cadet Cup is extremely important to us in order to provide our younger competitors with an extremely strong competition in the country. We hope that we will welcome all the competitors and that, as always, they will take home from Zagreb a beautiful picture from the competition and, what is important, make some new friends with judo.
Sports hall “Sutinska vrela” in Podsused will once again host the competition, and after the competition, as every year, there will be three days of training camp, which is a great opportunity for the progress of judoka of all ages, not only cadets.
We are expecting a strong tournament, almost 900 competitors and 1000 were registered. Zagreb is traditionally always a strong tournament, it seems that this year we are expecting the strongest in history. Excellent geographical location of Zagreb, great organization, therefore we are a magnet for the best cadets in Europe and the world. It will be extremely strong, extremely difficult! According to me, we have the skeleton of the national team that has started to be created, we have already started working on the first placements,
head coach of the Croatian U18 National Team Boško ROZGA said.
The tournament in Zagreb still holds the record in the calendar of the European Judo Union when 790 judoka from 31 countries competed in 2017.
This will be the 16th edition of the European Cadet Cup in Croatia. In 2020, it was cancelled due to the pandemic, and in 2021, it would be held outside Zagreb for the first and only time, when Poreč hosted a modest 368 competitors. An extremely long but high quality weekend awaits us in Zagreb.
On the first day, the categories in the cadet competition are scheduled: -40kg, -44kg, -48kg, -52kg and cadets: -50kg, -55kg, -60kg, -66kg. On Sunday, the women’s categories -57kg, -63kg, -70kg, +70kg and the men’s -73kg, -81kg, -90kg and +90kg are waiting for us.
The final fights await us in the late afternoon on both days.
Judoka
Author: Mario Krvavac