Richard Trautmann and Claudiu Pusa appointed as German head coaches

The German Judo Federation announced the new head coaches for the senior team at the annual meeting. For the period until the Olympic Games in 2020 in Tokyo Richard Trautmann (men) and Claudiu Pusa (women) were officially announced as the new coaches.

The two replace Michael Bazynski (women) and Detlef Ultsch (men) who were thanked for their performances in this decade by President Peter Frese (63) who was re-elected himself for another term. Frese holds the position as president since 2000 and is one of the longest current serving presidents around.

The change of the coaches was announced at the meeting but was in the air for quite some time. Pusa who booked tremendous successes with the German Junior team was a logical step as well as Richard Trautmann who works with the German Federation for a long time in both cadets and juniors. Pusa is one of the most successful coaches around in contrast to his own judoka performances when he lived in Romania. Pusa though built a tremendous team of juniors and won more than 20 international medals at World and European Junior Championships including recent European titles for Pauline Starke and Anna-Maria Wagner. He knows this generation since they were kids and had lots of successes at Cadet level with youngsters such as Giovanna Scoccimarro, Lara Reimann and last year with Alina Boehm. With the German juniors he won medals at World Junior Championships in 2013 and 2015 and this year the German Junior team won the European title in Malaga with a highly competent team.

Richard Trautmann was 1992 and 1996 Olympic bronze medallist for Germany in Barcelona and Atlanta U60kg. He won World bronze in 1993 in Hamilton. He became European team champion with Germany in 1994 and 1995 and twice silver. He worked himself up as successful talent coach. In 2014 and 2015 the German junior men’s team won medals at European Championships in Bucharest and Oberwart.

In Rio the target of three medals were not achieved and only Laura Vargas Koch captured a bronze medal for women U70kg. Germany will create double positions in various weight categories and increase the competition for the seniors, from that situation Germany will have a good position for the 2020 Games in Tokyo and beyond.

Get to know more about the successes of German judo.