At the weekend, Heidelberg was completely in the spotlight of para-judoka. The International German Youth Championships for U15, U18 and U21 took place on Saturday. In addition to Germany, athletes from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Spain, Luxembourg and Brazil took part. Around 40 young people took part in the first edition of this tournament. That doesn’t seem like much, but there was also a tournament like this in France that very weekend. “We are quite happy with the number of participants for the first time. “Especially that we were able to welcome so many international athletes,” says Sebastian Junk, the DJB speaker for Para-Judo and co-organizer of the event.
The German young people were very successful with three titles. Finnja Stiller from North Rhine-Westphalia, Bela Heinze and Aaron Rottmann, both from Hesse, won gold. Nathan van Melle (Bavaria) came second and Samuel van Melle (Bavaria) and Emirhan Dalgic (Baden) won bronze.
“The tournament was small but nice, all in all a good event,” says Sebastian Junk happily. “The tournament was very well received internationally. There are simply not enough competitions like this among young talent.”
