(JTH) March 28th, 2022 – On April 2nd, the first team of the judo team Holten will start their second Bundesliga season with a home fight against SV Nienhagen from Lower Saxony. On another four days of fighting, the men around head coach Ralf Najdowski will also meet the teams from Braunschweig, Leverkusen, Mönchengladbach and Gelsenkirchen in the north-west group until mid-September. The JTH finished last season in seventh place. That should be different this time.
Stay up in the league on your own
“Staying up in the league on our own” is the declared aim of coach Ralf Najdowski. For this, the JTH has increased its squad again compared to last year, to 39 judoka now. The core of the team is made up of well-known faces such as Denny Koppers, Finn Bittscheidt and Stephan Sommer. The fans can also look forward to seeing Lars Gajda, Robin Ellerbrock or the brothers Florian and Dominik Hück – the latter as foreign fighters from their friend Post SV Düsseldorf. With Max Welten, Janson Wong and Valentino Massanga there are also three newcomers from the Netherlands on the mat with the Holteners.
Reinforcement from the Netherlands
All three – 24, 20 and 19 years young – are not unknown in their homeland: Welten (+90 kg) won bronze at the Dutch Senior Championships in 2021, Wong (-60 kg) also took bronze at the Dutch Championships in Almere in 2019 and Massanga (like Welten +90 kg) won bronze at the 2020 junior championships.
Intensive preparation and anticipation
To prepare for the Bundesliga, the entire team completed a boot camp in Sterkrade and a joint training session in Düsseldorf with Post SV – the Dutch also made the trip. “That offered plenty of opportunity to get to know each other and experience our team spirit,” continued Najdowski. Conclusion: “It fits like a pot on a lid!”. Valentino Massanga adds: “I like the team, everyone welcomed us very nicely and openly. I can’t wait for the season to start!”
The JTH is also receiving financial support: As in the previous season, Siloxa AG from Essen, a leading provider of gas cleaning technology for the processing of biogas, is helping to meet the economic challenge of the Bundesliga.
Two home fights for the JTH
Unlike in the first Bundesliga season, the judo team Holten will have two home fights this year: In addition to the league opener on April 2nd, the third day of competition on May 21st against Leverkusen will also be played for the Holteners on home soil. Both competition days take place in the Günther-Stolz-Halle at the Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gymnasium on Wilhelmstraße in Sterkrade. Fighting is in seven weight classes in a first and second round.
2G-Plus for all visitors
It starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 2nd. Admission is from 12.00 p.m. Since the event will be held according to the rules of the DJB, 2G-Plus applies to both fighters and spectators and all accompanying persons. This means that only those who have recovered and those who have been vaccinated are admitted, plus an official rapid test that must not be older than 24 hours. This also applies to boosters. Once all the requirements are met, the people from Holten want to make the hall tremble. “We are counting on the support of the spectators as in the past. We have to and want to go full throttle here with all of the Holten judo fans,” Najdowski says combatively. More on the club website and up Facebook.
