Booming Belarussian juniors in Athens win triple gold

There’s a new generation looming in Belarus. The lightweight Juniors took three gold medals at the Junior European Cup in Athens this weekend. Ten winning nations shone in the Greek capital where Turkey took most of the medals.

An amazing result for the Belarussian boys. Starting with gold U60kg by Ruslan Halavachou (16) with three Kazach fighters on the stage, but Halavachou with gold and became the youngest winner of the weekend. Dzmitry Muzhaila is the new Minkou, he captured the gold U66kg, again two two Kazach fellas on the podium and bronze for Israels Bobovich in a field 45 athletes. Yahor Trukhan took the gold for young men U73kg. The third consecutive gold in Athens for Belarus an astonishing result.

Unique winners

On Sunday the men’s results were totally different with four nations winning gold: Pavel Scec of Czech Republic won U81kg. Turpal Sataev captured gold U90kg and Kazachsstan lost its third final. Marius Fizel of Slovakia won gold, quite a unique performance as for the first tie in six years a Slovak judoka won gold in the Junior European Cup. Omer Aydin lost his final U100kg but Turkey won gold in the heavyweight category by Furkan Guner against the only Greek finalist Dimitrios Tsoumitas.

In the women’s division Erza Muminoviq won gold despite her 16 years. The cadet European Champion from Kosovo was seventh in Zagreb at Cadet level but was able to win the Junior category in Athens. It said something about the participants. Usually the event is one of the weakest in the Junior tour, and last year it wasn’t held. Still 346 athletes, not even so bad and that says enough about the increasing interest of both juniors and cadets in the European Tour.

Cyprus takes gold

The division U52kg was won by Sofia Asvesta of Cyprus, she won the first gold for her country since 2016 at this level. The good part of Athens is that other less dominating countries get a chance to win the gold like Cyprus and Slovakia. Flaka Loxha of Kosovo won the second gold for her country.

An all Polish final U63kg on Saturday between Angelika Szymanska and Natalia Kropska, won by Szymanska. Maya Goshen won gold for Israel against Austrian Schuchter. Austria lost three finals in the women’s division. Annika Karilaid won gold U70kg for her country and Estonia is not very spoiled at this junior level. Also three years ago when Estonia won the gold medal, but now Karilaid was able to win against Polish Baczek. Turkey is always strong in the heavyweights and Mine Kalender (18) defeated Sevda Tasli in the final +78kg. Three Turkish youngsters on the podium in Athens.

The next tour is in Lignano.