Olympic Qualification is the goal for Hungarians at World Championships

The host of the World Championships, the Hungarian Judo Association announced its team for the top event from 6-13 June in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Gábor Pánczél and Péter Toncs, head coaches of the men and women national teams, made their decisions and selected the participating Hungarian team after the Kazan Grand Slam.

Hungary is attending the championships with the maximum, 18 number of judoka. The goal is the Olympic qualification, along with successful performance.

The goal is the Olympic qualification

If the qualification deadline was today, we would have seven judoka in Tokyo: Krisztián Tóth (90kg), Hedvig Karakas (57kg), Réka Pupp (52kg), Attila Ungvári (81kg), Éva Csernoviczki (48kg) and Szofi Özbas (63kg) are in a ranking which means „direct qualification”, but currently Miklós Cirjenics (100kg) also would be a participant with continental wild card. However, the qualification for Tokyo did not expire at all for other Hungarian judoka, as they can collect loads of precious points in Budapest, with an excellent result it would be possible to qualify, even if a judoka is behind the rivals in the ranking list at the moment.

The senior star of the Hungarian team, Miklós Ungvári, will compete in the László Papp Budapest Sports Arena, at the age of forty, our youngest participant will be the ninteen-year-old Junior ECH bronze medalist, Péter Sáfrány, Hungarian judoka are going to take part in the individual and mixed team competitions as well.. 

The Hungarian Team

MEN

73 KG: Ungvári Miklós, Szabó Frigyes

81 KG: Ungvári Attila, Tóth Benedek

90 KG: Tóth Krisztián, Sáfrány Péter

100 KG: Cirjenics Miklós, Vég Zsombor

+100 KG: Sipőcz Richárd

Reserve: Gőz Roland (90kg), Ohát Zalán (100kg), Vida András (60kg), Naji Dávid (60kg)

WOMEN

48 KG: Csernoviczki Éva

52 KG: Pupp Réka

57 KG: Karakas Hedvig, Kármán Andrea

63 KG: Özbas Szofi, Varga Brigitta

70 KG: Gercsák Szabina

78 KG: Mészáros Anett

+78 KG: Szigetvári Mercédesz

Reserve: Salánki Evelin (78kg), Mamira Luca (48kg)

Many (older) judo fans can remember those memorable moments when Antal Kovács in 1992 in Barcelona became the first Hungarian judoka to win Olympic gold medal. This great achievement was based after several huge success in world,- and European Championships or national events. Also, we cannot forget about the great champions of the present. Hedvig Karakas won the European Championships last year.