The European Judo Championship Kata Sarajevo 2024 is well underway and Dr Slavisa Bradic, Head Kata Commissioner of the European Judo Union shares his first impression of the event as well as thoughts on the newly added adapted kata judo event.
First of all, the organisation is very good, it is amazing because everything is in one place, the hotel, the venue etc… I was also impressed how they have managed to transform the venue overnight from veterans to kata.
As per the quality of the event, it is at really high level. With the Care system and top judges we have a top class competition. We selected the best judges to Sarajevo. Started from this year, we now have a ranking for the athletes as well as the judges. Despite, there is always room for improvement so we still had our seminar yesterday to discuss the rules, this was an interactive seminar. Also the number of entries are very high, 164 pairs. I am very happy. My vision is that hopefully in the near future we will need to divide the cadets and juniors to have their own tournament. This is good as it indicates that our market is growing.
On top of all, we will have the adapted judo event tomorrow and it is for the first ever time that we have adapted kata European championships, making this to be an inclusive sporting event. With that I must highlight inclusion has two sides: the special needs individuals who are accepted and included but also the other side. In society in general when an A-typical person sees a person with disability they more likely to pull away. Through judo this is another aspect we teach, to understand and accept individuals with disability, creating friendship etcetera. This is the real point of inclusion. Judo has so much to give to the society to be better, kata is just one part.
Author: Szandra Szogedi