Bottrop. Konstantin Distel, Pia Urban, Florian Böcker and Asal Ghaffar prevailed in the U18 title fights in Leipzig and U21 in Frankfurt Oder.
With strong performances, the JC 66 Bottrop was able to get into the spotlight weeks before the start of the Bundesliga. It’s not just Agatha Schmidt who is serving as the club’s figurehead more than ever these days, as she is currently in the middle of the race to qualify for the Summer Games in Paris. The Bottrop club also achieved respectable results in the national title fights in the youth sector, which made people sit up and take notice and give those responsible for the JC hope for the future.
“We were very satisfied with the performances of all the athletes,” sums up Jan Tefett, who, in addition to his role as team manager of the Bundesliga team, also acts as a junior coach. “With the successes achieved, the JC 66 has once again underlined its outstanding position in the German judo scene.” Tefett is referring to the recently concluded German championships in the U18 and U21 age groups, where the JC went on a medal hunt with some talented people and was very successful.
Konstantin Disteln lives up to his role as favorite
The U18 youth teams kicked things off at the beginning of the month in Leipzig, where the Bottrop team not only won two titles but also secured second place in the club rankings. On the first day, JC newcomer Konstantin Distel was consistently successful, competing in the weight class up to 81 kg and, as second place in the world rankings, was the favorite.
He lived up to this and showed himself confident in many fights. In the final he finally made up for a deficit against Jan Libuda and won his first DM title with a handhold. Pia Urban was to achieve the same thing the following day, with Tefett saying it was an “outstanding tournament”. Urban confidently fought her way through the field of participants up to the semi-finals, with a tactically disciplined performance against Grace Storm, the JC athlete won the final ticket. There she finally kept her nerve against Witten’s Klara Erten and sent her to the mat.
Florian Böcker completes his personal triple
Last weekend the German U21 individual championships took place in Frankfurt (Oder). Here too, the JC 66 was supposed to play a key role, as two titles went to Bottrop. Florian Böcker completed his personal triple, winning his second U21 title after a U18 title and at the same time replacing last year’s winner and club mate Nicolas Kutscher, who ultimately ended up in third place in the weight class up to 60 kg. Tefett: “It was an important step for both of them, they fought a really good tournament.”
Further reports on judo from Bottrop and the surrounding area
Ronja Buddenkotte, who narrowly missed out on defending her title in the new edition of last year’s final, narrowly missed out on defending her title, but has so far impressed with strong performances in her class (up to 78 kg). Meanwhile, in the lightweight category up to 48 kg, Helen Habib missed the tournament due to an injury – but the title still went to a JC athlete: Asal Ghaffar, a winter newcomer from the 66ers, took first place. The result was rounded off with a good seventh place from Pia Urban, who, after her U18 title, was also able to take part in the U21 championships and there underlined her promising development.
Read more reports from local sport in Bottrop here!
2024-03-14 16:18:15
#talents #dominate #German #championships
