Idman.biz
"We want to repeat the success we achieved at the European Championship at the European Youth Olympic Festival."
Idman.biz reports that these words were said by Emin Iskandarov, the head coach of the Azerbaijani national team of junior judokas, in his statement to "Report" while sharing his views on the European Championship held in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia.
He spoke about the team taking first place among the boys with three gold medals: "We expected the athletes to perform successfully in the 50, 55 and 60 kg weight categories. We saw Anar Guliyev, Rasul Alizadeh and Zayd Alasgarov as candidates for the championship. We also had a strong opponent in the 55 kg. Russian Alexey Taptygin is the current world champion. He also won a gold medal at the European Cup held in Guba and defeated Rasul Alizadeh in the final. But this time he lost to the Italian representative in the semi-final. Rasul defeated his opponent in the final and became the European champion."
E. Iskandarov said that Anar Guliyev in the 50 kg is one of the best wrestlers in the team: "He defeated Ilya Taptygin, the younger brother of Alexey Toptygin. We thought the chances were equal, but Anar surpassed his opponent. We also expected a victory from Zayd in the 60 kg. We also hoped that athletes in other weights would win at least a bronze medal. Unfortunately, they lost the first match due to technical mistakes. They lost due to a technical mistake in the matches they were leading. Our main athletes in the 81 and +90 kg could not participate in the competition. We decided not to take Amin Mehdiyev (81 kg) to the tournament because he had a slight leg injury. Subhan Akhundov (+90 kg), who was the second European last year, could not go to the European Championship due to his exam. The non-participation of these judokas caused us to lose two medals."
The head coach reminded that they will participate in the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) in the same city in July: "We have a high chance of achieving good results in this competition as well. At the end of August, we will go to the World Championship in Bulgaria. After the European Championship, we gave our assignments to the children. We said that the European Championship is not the end. That result must be repeated in the World Cup. Of course, it is difficult. There will be very intense meetings. But everything depends on preparation. We will work on the mistakes in the European Championship."
It should be noted that the Azerbaijani national team completed the European Championship with a total of 6 medals, including 3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze in individual competitions. In the team, Anar Guliyev (50 kg), Rasul Alizadeh (55 kg), Zayd Alasgarov (60 kg) won gold, Narmin Agamirzazadeh (48 kg) silver, Gulshan Huseynova (44 kg) and Leyla Alakbarova (48 kg) won bronze medals. With this result, our team took the second place in the overall team score and the first place among boys according to the value of the medals.
Idman.biz
