Győr hosted the third edition of the European Judo Hopes Cup and Technical Session event, a project dear to our President, Dr TOTH Laszlo. With much success in its infancy, Toth was proud to welcome this particular event to his home town, which has already seen much action in the judo calendar in 2024.
The Győr European Judo Hopes Cup & Technical Session with Kodokan Experts was a dream come true for me just like with the whole U15 series. I truly think that the spirit of judo is present at events and weekends like this one. On such occasions, we show the judo community that not only the medals and the fights are important but also the education of the young judokas.
This initiative and the establishment of this programme is to help the young judoka of today, become better prepared for their future, whether that be in competition or if they themselves go on to become coaches. Regardless, the education they receive on this technical session is a truly special and invaluable experience.
Ms. Nakamura, our Kodakan expert, and Mr. Orujov, our European Hero, did a fantastic job with the 3 Technical sessions, each lasting around 3 hours. It was very inspiring to watch them work so well and effortlessly with all the children as well as our EJU colleagues.
I hope this initiative will be more popular in the upcoming years and it will also be useful for the coaches in many ways. I reckon that besides the athletes, the referees will benefit most from these sessions since our goal here is to teach clean techniques. This way it will be much easier to filter out bad and harmful actions. This can be only achieved through proper education, which is highly supported by the European Judo Union.
I was pleasantly surprised by the judokas of this age category, they were incredibly determined and well-prepared. This shows great foundations, on which we can build. Some of them even rival their older counterparts in this sense. I hope to see many events like this in the future.
Author: Thea Cowen