Teams of around the globe at European Open Glasgow

This weekend the European Open of Glasgow is the last European Open of this year. The event will be used to gain the maximum of 100 qualification points for a gold medal, which can help in the seeding for future events. The event is a preparation tournament for the European U23 Championships later this year in Tel Aviv and future events such as Grand Prix Qingdao and Grand Slam of Tokyo, the last two events in the IJF World Tour.

Approximately 200 judoka will try to collect the medals in the Scottish capital at the Emirates Arena. This will be the first time that the Glasgow European Open will have hosted both male and female judoka on the same weekend and with all 14 weight categories fighting on the same day the crowd will be treated to a lot high-class judo.

Some of the appealing names in the men’s division will be the home fighters Neil MacDonald, Max Stewart, Philip Awiti and in the women’s team Kelly Edwards, Lucy Renshall, Lubjana Piovesana, Jemima Yeats Brown and Ebony Drysdale. Most of them a neo seniors and will have to conquer with some of the established athletes in Europe and outside the continent such as Brazil. Argentina, USA and Hong Kong.

Not only a team of 43 British athletes, but also a huge French team will fight in Glasgow. A large team of the Netherlands, Spain and the USA as well as youngsters from Canada.

The team of coach Michel Almeida combined the European Open in Belgrade with the OTC in Rome, which is an important step in this experience. “Some new athlete couldn’t get free for the two weeks trip and will come to Glasgow such as Jessica Klimkait”, one of Canada’s hopes. The Canadian champion U57kg won the tournament in Arlon in the beginning of this year, Coimbra U21 and won silver in Celje. “We have a young team, with even young guys of 17 for whom the OTC in Rome was a good experience to hold some international athletes. The distances are so large in Canada, that centralization is key, but also international experience is the only way to become better. It takes time and money to achieve this and some may lose in the first round, but we had a good team at the Olympics with Antoine Bouchard, Antoine Valois-Fortier and Kelita Zupancic who finished top 8, but we want to have more of those medal challengers.”

From today Michel Almeida is the new head coach of Judo Canada replace Nicolas Gill who steps up as CEO of Judo Canada and still High Performance Dorector.