2015 European Junior Champion Frank de Wit (20) won’t defend title

Six out of 16 European Junior Champions of last year in Oberwart are now senior. Walide Khyar stunned everyone later this year by snatching the Senior European title in Kazan in April. Larissa Groenwold won the European Open last week in Tallinn where also Lucy Renshall won, she also took gold in Oberwart last year.

What to say about Beka Gviniashvili, he qualified for the Olympic Games and finished seventh in a highly competitive event, where Lukas Krpalek, also a former double European Junior Champion took the title. We can say that the European Junior Championships contribute to future success.

One of last year’s winners, Frank de Wit was still able to compete with his 20 years. Also De Wit qualified for Rio after winning precious medals at the Grand Slam of Paris, the Junior world title and a bag of experience in the year after his title in Oberwart. This year however he won’t compete in Malaga.

De Wit: “I won’t be competing in Malaga, it was an agreement with myself but also with my coach John van der Meer, that since I took the Junior World title just after the European Juniors, I had to focus on the Olympic Games qualification, so my Junior time was over. After the Olympic Games in Rio, I took a holiday and I just started training. It was so super massive to win the title last year in Austria, because it was a confirmation that I made huge progression.”