The 3rd place play off in the 9th World Championship was a very interesting set up. Both fighters with significant wins during the tournament, both strong profiles winning their top tournament of their region in front. Dimitrov with his EC victory against Eduard Janoashvili in Lithuania, as Nesterenko became the champion of the Russian Open-weight,defeating top fighter Denis Grigoriev the year before.
In 2007, at the 9th World Karate Championship two of the very best European fighters faced each other in the quarter final. Gergana Atanasova (Bulgaria) and Edit Ábrahám (Hungary) Both “always” to see at the EC podium – like in 2007, both in the EC final, Ábrahám in middleweight and Atanasova in heavyweight.
The 9th World Championship Shinkyokushin 2007 – Valeri Dimitrov, Bulgaria and Zsolt Balogh, Hungary face each other in their 4th fight of the tournament. Both had notable wins, and being young up and coming fighters, they did make a great impression. Although Dimitrov was the favorite, the fight shows greats skills and technical variations – a key to their success.
Two World Champions, and two highly merited top fighters. To be correct, when this fights was fought, in 2016 and 2014 – Juri Minamihara was not World Champion – yet. “Only” runner up in the 11th World Championship held in 2015. Later on Minamihara took the World tittle in the weight category in 2017 (middleweight), and in the Open Weight World Championship in 2019. As for Emi Shoguchi, World Champion in 2011, and world champion in weight category 2017 (Super heavyweight) And for both, this is only some of their high merits packed record.
European Championship – Open weight in 2013, held in Oradea, Romania. Open-weight will always be interesting since we get fights across the regular weight-categories. That was the case in the final, where Marius Ilas (Romania) fought Antanas Klibavicius (Lithuania) We will look into the quarterfinal: Maciej Mazur (Poland) vs Jimmie Collin (Sweden)
From the European championship in 2018, so this is nothing new – but we will give it some attention anyway. The European region and WKO expand and develop – and in 2018 we did get a new set of weight categories in the EC. This gave us some new match ups. One between two World Champions: Salahat Hasanov vs Valeri Dimitrov.
It is twenty years since Valeri Dimitrov entered the European Championship in Spain – his first European Championship. Since that time he has been the “one and only” We tried to gather some of the EC finals trough the twenty years, not every final can be find – but e did a decent try. The EC finals are from weight category championship.
As always, we are impressed looking at the full-contact fighters that enter the tatami over and over again. But this year, due to the pandemic that has – and still are, a huge challenge for us all. Championships of any kind are not more important than life itself, and it has to come in that order. Well some great tournaments did go trough – and we will take a closer look at some of them – women’s first.
Over ten year ago Mikheil Tsiklauri capture the European tittle in the LW division. The EC final in 2009 was a great start – and a warning of things to come..second place the year after, before winning the EC tittle once again in 2011. After this he entered the podium 4 times, including going all the way winning the EC final in 2019 – for his third time (MW) Representing Georgia in the World Championships has also ended in good results, 3rd place in World Championship in weight-categories in 2017 – in the process beating All Japan Open Champion Shunsaku Kawase.
World Champion 2022, 7th World championship in weight categories. European Champion in weight categories and in Open Weight – top 6 in The 12th World Championship 2019 – to name some of the top results. Also known for his incredibly strong finish in his matches, with a pressure, pace and power that is very difficult to resist. Good knock out set ups – like the high knee or the “death roll” that secured his EC tittle in 2018. EC Champion 2020 EFKO European Championships, and EC shin Champion 2021. Been national team member of the Lithuanian team for many years, representing them i European Championships and World championships across countries and organizations. (Photo top of the blog pufasfoto.lt )
