Cadet European Champions have to be patient for senior transition

Another victory for Dutch Marin Visser, this time the most precious medal of the season. At the Cadet European Championships the Dutch won her category U63kg in which she is fighting for three years. The 17-year old gave the Netherlands the third place in the medal ranking after two days.

Visser won all her five matches including the quarter final against one of the favourites Szofi Ozbas of Hungary. In the semi final Tatiana Guzun (RUS) was defeated and in the final Martina Lanini got defeated by ippon. Visser won four out of her five contests by ippon. Visser became the 15^th European Cadet Champion for her country, which is a good outlook but none of them won an Olympic or senior World Championships medal. It’s a long road for these cadets, but there are exceptions who make a quick jump to junior or senior level in a few years time.

Usually it takes about 7 years before the Cadet European medallist come to senior success, in the girls categories the development goes faster.

Italy wasn’t lucky, the time had high expectations but so far lost four finals. Not only Martina Lanini lost the final but also Veronica Toniolo who won four European Cups this season lost to French Faiza Mokdar in the U52kg final. Mokdar won the only gold medal for France so far in the tournament. France is one of the most successful nations at Cadet level and Mokdar was able to improve last year’s result of France not winning a medal. 2016 Champion Romane Dicko is one of those talents who rocketed herself to the top of senior women’s judo.

Turkey celebrated another gold medal at this level like in 2014, 2015 and 2017 (2). Both the girls and Turkish boys are becoming successful where in the past only the women excelled. Hasret Bozkurt took the gold U57kg and bested Lara Cvjetko of Croatia in the final.

Abrek Naguchev was the expected winner for young men U66kg. The Russian dominated the event and also in the final against Spanish Javier Pena Insausti. Naguchev was the best among 35 judoka, but the category U73kg had even 42 participants. In this category the two Russians clearly were the best and it led to an all Russian final between Ibragimgadzhi Suleimanov who overcame Igor Talunin by two wazari. In the semi final Suleimanov defeated number one seed Gergely Nerpel. Talunin won against Adrian Sulca and both losing semi finallists won the bronze medal afterall.

After two days of fighting Russia leads the medal table with five gold medallsist and six nations also captured the gold.