This year, the Junior European Judo Championships will take place in Sofia from the 13th to the 16th of September 2018. It is for the second time that Bulgaria hosts this event with the first being back in 2004. The entry sees 415 judoka from 43 different nations heading to the foot of the Vitosha Mountain. With only four days to go, our young athletes are counting down in excitement as well as nervousness.
The President of the European Judo Union, Mr. Sergey Soloveychik, welcomes you all in Sofia for this important event, whilst wishes everyone a very successful week ahead;
“This event marks an important stage for young judoka as they seek to develop technical, tactical, physical, and mental skills necessary to compete at the highest levels. Irrespective of competitive success however, it remains essential that young judoka have positive experiences in our sport making it likely that they will choose to stay active for life.”
The President of the Bulgarian Judo Federation, Mr. Ivan Mihalev also expressed his thoughts ahead of the tournament;
“The Bulgarian Judo Federation is going to proudly host the Junior European Judo Championships, Individual & Team 2018, which will be held 13th-16th September in Sofia. On behalf of our Federation I would like to take this opportunity to welcome all delegations of the participating federations, and to wish them success and great performance in the name of Judo! I believe that it will be one strong, dynamic and interesting competition. I wish everyone a pleasant stay in our country.”
The competition will run across four days with three days of the individual contests concluded by the Mixed Team event to close the show on the last and final day. It will be for the first time that the Mixed Team event is added to the schedule of the Junior European Judo Championships. The tournament will be held at Sport Hall Asics Arena and scheduled to start at 10:00am local time for the individuals contests. The Mixed Team event is currently planned to start at 11:00am local time. The tourney will be available live online via eju.net. Stay tuned during the upcoming days as we will introduce the athletes of the 2018 Junior European Judo Championships. In the meantime don’t forget our official hashtags for the event: #JudoSofia2018 and #europeanjudo.