WAKO European Championships
Greece Loutraki 19th-27th November 2016
From 19th till 27th November 2016 Greece hosted second part of the European Kickboxing Championship for disciplines: Point fighting, Kick Light, Musical forms and Full Contact .These days were fully packed with high-quality fighting, friendship and fair play.
This championship is the example of the big positive development within the WAKO organization as a whole. For all participants, this was a great opportunity to join and be inspired for the future work.
The highest marks for the condition in the sport hall
Great Opening ceremony
With 480 participants from 33 countries, WAKO continues to show strength in Europe. Counting with the participants on the first part of the Championships held in Maribor, Slovenia, we have number of more than 1000 entries on the European Championships 2016.
Spain on the ceremony Turkey came with the most numerous team
With the participation of great, confirmed champions and legends of WAKO, fighters like Zsolt Moradi, Roman Brundl, McMenamy Robbie, Szabo Dorina, etc. we had also the newcomers who attended Championships of Europe for the first time. This was certainly inspiring for all of the participants.
The toughest discipline and category with much concurrence was for sure Full contact man -71kg, where we had the numerous number of registered participants. Interesting thing is that Turkey had the most numerous team, 49 athletes, even more than the host country, Greece.
Scheduled three days elimination fights passed very well and everybody was excited about the finals.
Medals statistics is as follows:
Three best nations are:
1. Russia (19 gold, 8 silver, 6 bronze-total 33)
2. Hungary (9 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze – total 16)
3. Italy ( 5 gold, 9 silver, 13 bronze – total 27)
Igor Kulbaev most successful coach Russia
Fantastic success for the Russians: from 39 participants of the Championships, they brought home 33 medals, which means that their success was 84%.
Hanne Lauslehto Finland best female fighter
Europe got the new Champions and they will go home inspired to train even harder, remembering the great event but most important, looking forward to the positive future of the sport of Kickboxing.
European Championship 2016 – Awards
Tatami
Best male fighter: Roland Veres (Hungary)
Roland Veres Best male fighter with his trainer
Tatami
Best female fighter: Paulina Jarzmik (Poland)
Paulina Jarzmik best female fighter Poland
Ring
Best male fighter: Iurii Konikov (Russia)
Best female fighter: Hanne Lauslehto (Finland)
Most ethical coach – Elaine Small (Ireland)
Best referee – Tatami: Oriano De Bei (Italy)
Best referee – Ring: Farigat Kasymov (Russia)
Most successful coach: Igor Kulbaev (Russia)
Text by: Marijana Pelević
Photo by: Per Andreas Ringsby