Our national team's head coach says that our athletes cannot unleash their potential at the same time

"As always, not all athletes in the team can show their potential at the same time."

Idman.biz reports with reference to AZERTAC that this was stated by Richard Trautman, the head coach of the Azerbaijani national men's judo team.

He said that, as always, not all athletes in the team can show their potential at the same time: "I was a little disappointed on the first day of the competition. But Ahmad Yusifov won his first medal at this level - a bronze, which is a positive step forward. Unfortunately, two more of our athletes with the potential for a gold medal, especially Ruslan Pashayev in the -66 kg weight category, made mistakes. However, he had defeated his opponents in that weight category before. But judo is such a sport - the results cannot be predicted in advance. The second day of the competition made me happy. In fact, our Olympic and world champion Hidayat Heydarov was supposed to go to the tatami, but he fell ill at the last moment and withdrew from the competition. We also brought Rashid Mammadaliyev, who was in the mixed team, and he won a bronze medal. It was a very spectacular performance, especially since he had just returned from an injury. On the third day of the competition, I was not satisfied with the decision made in Murad Fatiyev's semi-final fight with Italian Kristian Parlati. The same thing happened in the match between Zelim Tckaev and Tato Grigalashvili in the -81 kg weight category. Although I do not agree with the decisions, we must accept them."

The head coach said that Hidayat Heydarov is expected to participate in the world championship: "That is the plan. First of all, he must fully recover, and then we must start preparing responsibly."

The expert said that the situation in women's judo has not yet changed radically: "But we have already set serious goals in this direction. We do not intend to simply accept the situation as it is. We have brought two high-level coaches for our women's team - Amina Abdellatif from France and Sasha Herkenrat from Germany. The main goal is to change the atmosphere in the team. It is very important for a female athlete to develop self-confidence to win. In terms of potential, women's judo is still limited, because there are few women who will train seriously at a high level and say "I will be an Olympic champion." Our federation's leadership is determined to invest heavily in women's judo. However, this is not only solved by the training process. In society, women's involvement in professional sports should be supported more. This is only possible with great success. It is very important to create a role model. For example, Diyora Keldiyorova from Uzbekistan is actually a very good example. First of all, we want our girls to have more international experience. In the first stage, the new coaches got to know the athletes and their characteristics. Now we are preparing individual development plans. If one or two of our female athletes reach the elite level, a domino effect can occur. We are already observing this in men. Thanks to the achieved success, now more boys want to do judo."

Idman.biz