Sport Centre
11-04-2010

German and Italian victory

The women’s and men’s individual matches closed the 23rd European Kendo Championship on Sunday in Phoenix Hall. In the morning the combative women, in the afternoon the imperturbable men fought for the European title. The Hungarians won two bronze medals.

The program began in the morning; the women started the fights with the round robin from 31 pools than the competition continued with the single elimination rounds to decide who’s the best in kendo in Europe.

The Hungarian Team (Erdélyiné Király Barbara, Bővíz Marina, Czimbalmos Mercédesz, Kiss Renáta, Pénzes Eszter, Kozma Edina and Kovács Kinga) started the pool fights with great expectations. However, Bővíz, Király and Czimbalmos qualified to the best 16, only Bővíz could fight in the quarter final rounds but finally she also dropped out. Finally Sabrina Kumpf won the gold medal defeating her compatriot Safiyah Fadai in the final match.

The national men’s team (Dubi Sándor. Babos Gábor, Dubi Attila, Gasparin Szabolcs, Király Norbert, Tóth Balázs and Váradi Ábel) were received with cheering and they lived with it: Dubi Sándor, Dubi Attila, Babos, Király and Gasparin qualified for the best 32 and we could expect a medal from them. The Hungarian heroes of the day became Dubi Attila, Király Norbert and Dubi Sándor, who could fight among the best 8.

By then it could have been presumed (two Hungarians were in the same bracket) that the Hungarians will earn a medal and they did. Kiraly proved to be better than Dubi Sándor whose brother, Attila defeated the Czech Cilek therefore two Hungarians went to the semifinals. From then on, the spectators were excited about the color of the medal and finally was pleased with two bronze medals won by Dubi Attila and Király Norbert.

In the final between the Italian Mandia and the Finnish Korhonen the Italian could win: it was a good closing of a good European Championship.