Final in Gmunden: The champion of the 1st Judo Bundesliga comes from Vienna.
GMUNDEN. In an exciting final, the M&R Galaxy Tigers prevailed against the UJZ Mühlviertel at the Final Four in Gmunden only because of the better underrating (70:64). After fourteen final fights, the score was 7:7. Since the Viennese had won all fights by Ippon, but the Upper Austrians only five of them, the Tigers return to the Austrian judo throne. For the club manager’s team Thomas Haasmann it was the eighth championship title in the last nine years. As is well known, last year the LZ Multikraft Wels had to admit defeat to the Olympic medalist Shamil Borchashvili.
Close matches in the title fight
Already in the first round there was a tight race for the team championship title and the lead changed several times. A Mühlviertler opening win was followed by three victories for Galaxy. The Upper Austrians then equalized to 3:3 before Movli Borchashvilli brought the Viennese back into the lead. After the break, things remained exciting: after two wins in the light weight classes, the people of Mühlviertel took the lead again with 5:4, Galaxy turned back to 5:6 before the duel ended in a 7.7 draw after fourteen fights and the tie had to decide.
With “young guns” to success
“Mühlviertel has with me Martin Schloegl an outstanding coach on the sidelines, who actually did everything right with his line-up in the final. After the first round we knew that we still needed three Ippon wins to be able to bring the championship title back to Vienna. Luckily we managed to do that, even though we competed with a lot of young fighters under the age of 21 this year. But it is precisely these young guns that are the reason why I keep going year after year,” says Haasmann, in whose ranks alongside the European champions Denis Vieru (MDA/-73) and Michael Korrell (NED/-100) especially the only 19-year-old Bernd Fasching (-81) excelled with four fight wins in as many duels.
The organizer also had reason to be happy Manfred Reisinger: “This tight final was the icing on the cake of an Austrian judo festival, where we were able to see the spectators returning and finally experience a unique atmosphere in front of a packed hall.”
