Zagreb is once again the centre of university sport. For the last two days in the Student dormitory “Stjepan Radić” and in the sports venues, competitors in Taekwondo, Judo, Karate and Kickboxing had their last preparations.
The day before the start of the EUSA Combat Championship organized by EUSA, the contestants started with their training. Some of them shared their impressions with us. The student of the International University of Greece was very excited and told us that she would do her best to achieve as much success as possible at the Karate Championship. The competitor from the University of Valencia Fernando Pinango said that he is very satisfied with the organization: „Venue is bigger than some other times. Tatami is a little bit slippery, and that is because they are new, but it's not the problem, we will try to do our best. The organization is perfect. We came and it was all very fast. We didn't have a problem to get our accreditations and lunch tickets. Everything is fast and great“!
Judo athletes had their training in the competition area of Dom sportova Hall. During the training, all participants were concentrated in performing techniques and preparing actions for the tournament. Among those who were in training also was Paula Gredig from the University of Leipzig who will take part for the first time in the European University Championship. „It's the first time I took part at the European University Championship so I hope that this will be a nice experience for me, and something that I'll remember many years later, a positive event. It will be very nice for me if I win more fights, but it won't be a problem if I not“.
Also, we used the opportunity to talk with Nikola Miloševic, the coach from the University of Niš: „Organisation is perfect, Hall is beautiful. Colour of the mat is also great, and It causes extra adrenaline for competitors. We are excited about tomorrow's competition. We have here great team, last years they all were in the Worlds top 20 in the junior category. It would be immodest to say that we don't expect a result“.
In Taekwondo, athletes will compete in three disciplines, kyorugi, recognized Poomsae and freestyle Poomsae. During the training, there were numerous attractive actions and acrobatics, especially from those competitors who perform freestyle Poomsae. Also, very intensive trainings were done by other athletes, and some of them used open courts in the Athletes village to prepare for upcoming matches.
Jessica Rau from the University of Trier told us after the training that her goal is to reach finals in recognized and freestyle Poomsae: „I think that it will be better to know which Poomsaewe have to do next day, and than have training. But we have a great area it's like on the other competitions which is perfect. I would like to reach finals in individual Poomsae, and individual freestyle“.
Competitions in four sports and 1300 participants are today starting the competitions and we are excited to see who'll put the medal around the neck.