Big Finnish team at European Cup in Tampere

Estonian judoka Juhan Mettis is the absolute record holder of the European Cup in Tampere. He won the European Cup three times and started his four years campaign with bronze. Now he is on a higher level with eleven World Cup medals.

The event, held over the last four years is scheduled this weekend in Finland where in 2006 the senior European Championships were held. Ten years later the Finnish are working on a team of young talents. Last year the Finnish athletes won two gold medals by Anni Ikälä and Aku Laakkonen. In 2014 Eetu Laamanen and Jaakko Alli started the four gold medals in history.

Russia is still the most successful nation at the Finnish Open with 12 gold medals and 35 medals in total. Finland is second followed by the Netherlands with 23 medals against 25 for the host nation. France is second when it comes to victories, the French won nine, two of them last year.

Last year Finland had five final places and still the men won more medals, but the women are coming up.

For this event mainly Nordic countries and Baltic States will be attending with strong athletes, but also traditional adventurers from Switzerland, Italy, France, Israel and Russia will be competing. In the Finnish teams appealing youngsters as Emilia Kanerva, Alexandra Barton and Katri Kakko are expected to compete and in the men’s team over 30 judoka with Finnish champion Arttu Määttä and Klaus Verlin will fight as well as Samuli Viitanen, Eetu Laamanen and Aku Laakkonen.