The conclusion of a successful season was this year’s snowman tournament in Schwetzingen. We competed in this big tournament with five mats laid out with a total of 11 judoka. In contrast to previous years, this tournament was very strong; judoka from Mainz, Wiesbaden, Kaiserslautern and many other strong clubs were represented.
The U11 started with Elli, Elena, Emelie, Mats, Jonas, Darian and Henri. Jonas, Darian and Henri had a difficult time because they had little tournament experience in their first year of U11. Nevertheless, they showed courage and rose to the challenge, highly motivated and ambitious. All three took 3rd place, all three were able to win at least one fight, the other encounters were partly clear and partly only narrowly lost.
Mats, on the other hand, with a lot of self-confidence, won one fight after the other, sometimes after judges’ decisions, but always without danger, and secured the golden trophy for 1st place. Unfortunately, our twins Emelie and Elena were in the same group. They could each safely prevail against their opponents, but they also had to compete against each other. In an exciting, even fight, the judges decided, this time it went in favor of Emelie, gold for her, silver for Elena.
Jonathan, Mads and Anna started in the U13, Lenja started in the U15. In unexpectedly strong groups, Jonathan could confidently win the first fight up to 40 kg, but then he would have to give in to his next opponents by a very narrow margin and narrowly missed out on 3rd place, 5th place for him. Mads had to compete in a weight class higher than before; he also had a difficult time in this strong environment. In the first two fights he dominated his opponents, but then after a tough and unfortunately lost fight he had to fight for third place in the consolation round. Unfortunately he narrowly lost here and also had to settle for 5th place. Anna secured third place by winning one fight and losing one and was happy about the bronze trophy.
With 2 x gold, 1 x silver, 4 x bronze and two 5th places, we can be satisfied and look forward to the new competition season in 2026 with confidence. With the exception of our U11 girls Elena, Emelie and Elli, the other judoka in their age group will fight for another year and will certainly be very successful.
