The Junior
European Judo Championship was ended, held in Malaga, Spain. 405 athletes (229
boys, 176 girls) competed in the tournament and the national team was
represented by 13 judokas (10 boys, 3 girls).The members
of the national team Natig Gurbanli (55kg) and Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg) became winner
of the championship. It should be noted with great pride that, both of these
judokas are the representatives of “Neftchi Sports Club”. Natig Gurbanli moved
to the final without barrier. In this way, he won the Turkish athlete Oguzkhan
Karaca, Hungarian Daniel Monori and Georgian Irakli Kupatadze. In the decisive
match Gurbanli faced with the Russian judoka Ali Pafov, won his opponent and
claimed a gold medal of the continental championship. Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg)
also repeated the same success. The judoka won over Alexandru
RAICU (ROU), Tomasz CSERNIAWSKI (POL), Daniel POWELL (GBR) and Akil GJAKOVA
(KOS) and reached to the final. In the final he strangled his opponent Giorgi
KATSIASHVILI (GEO) and took a gold medal.On the last
day of the championship, team competitions were held. Also represented by our club’s
athletes the national team achieved a historical success in the prestigious
tournament. The judokas won the teams of Great Britain and Ukraine and reached
to the semi-final. At this stage, our team won over the judokas of Holland and
obtained the right to participate in the final of the European Championship
team competitions for the first time in the history. In the final our team’s
opponent was the team of Georgia. In the match the national team lost to the
opponent (2:3) and claimed a silver medal.