Team of eight wins 1x gold, 2x silver and 2x bronze:
As is well known, the start of the 2022 competition season is still a long time coming in Germany. For this reason, some judoka from the district of Upper Bavaria were looking for alternatives in order to gain tournament practice and a competitive feeling after an almost endless abstinence. Some Pallinger judoka around supervisor Tino Flemming also asked some athletes in Upper Bavaria who might be interested in participating in the international ranking 500 tournament U18/U21/Elite and an international student tournament U11/U13/U15 taking place the day after. The three-man team could be strengthened with judoka from FC Puchheim, SC Gröbenzell and TuS Holzkirchen. The supervisors Danilo Kunz and Rico Gonschorek, as well as the Pallinger organizer, found it particularly interesting that all athletes had the opportunity to start twice in two age groups in order to gain more competition practice.
Unlike in Germany, the participants in the national Swiss championships are not determined by a qualification method, but by an annual ranking of the positions achieved in the ranking tournaments. Of course, this means a promising high level of the participants, to which international fighters are also admitted, but who are not taken into account in the ranking system. The age groups U18, U21 and Elite (adults) started on Saturday. Almost 600 participants from Switzerland, Germany, Liechtenstein, France and Italy traveled to the canton of Solothurn for this purpose.
In the U18, the 14-year-olds Philipp Gonschorek (Puchheim), Ronja Müller (Gröbenzell) and the two Pallingers Lea Rasch and Moritz Langner started. It was not possible to achieve top placements in this next higher age group, but the main focus here was on competition practice.
In the U21 and the elite, Leonie Zeller (Holzkirchen) and Louis Flemming (Palling) were the Upper Bavarian representatives. Flemming met strong opponents (Kevin Gajt, Bastien Milani) in round one and unfortunately had to retire early. Things went better for Leonie Zeller, the reigning German runner-up U18 and fifth in the DEM U21. In the U21s she won the pool but lost to Lisa Richard from France in the semifinals. The fight for bronze was then against the sister of the semi-final opponent, who was able to defeat Zeller early and secured bronze. In the adult competition, Zeller met Lisa Richard again. The places were awarded in the Best of Three mode. Fighting tactically clever, Leonie was able to hold out longer against the French runner-up, but ultimately lost both times by a narrow margin. Nevertheless, silver was Leonie’s second medal that day.
On Sunday, the mat belonged to the younger ones in the Upper Bavarian team. The two Puchheim brothers Gabriel and Raphael Kunz also started here. As the youngest in the team, Gabriel Kunz secured the silver medal in his weight class with one win and one loss. For his brother Raphael it was unfortunately over after the defeat at the beginning, because his opponent didn’t win the pool. Moritz Langner also lost his first fight against Moser, who later came in third, but had the chance in the repechage. This was the end of the game against Carlo LaGuardia. Lea Rasch fought in the female competition up to 57kg. After the defeat at the beginning against Kimberly Clark, who later won from Nyon, the Pallinger fighter won two more games against Swiss opponents and earned a deserved bronze.
The current southern German runner-up Philipp Gonschorek from FC Puchheim was in top form in the +60kg class. After Ippon preliminary round victories against Viktor Vukasin, Nuri Bode and Leo Rauch-Kano from Lausanne, Gonschorek was confident in the final. Here, too, he didn’t miss a beat against Kamali Sherevdani from Basel and secured victory in the tournament in an impressive manner.
The sports trip to Switzerland was rounded off by a trip to the adventure pool in the slide world of the Säntispark in Sankt Gallen.
Tino Flemming
