321 Juniors, 104 women and 217 men fought on the first day of the European Cup Juniors in Leibnitz / AUT.
Overall, there will be 596 young judoka from 35 nations from 3 continents on the mats in south Styria. The biggest team is Germany with 30 female and 37 male judoka, followed by Russia (28/30) and Brazil (18/31). Host Austria has a line-up of 14 women and 25 men.
Reigning Junior World Champion -55 kg, Vincent Manquest of France is fighting this year one category higher and lost his first contest against Jose Vicente Souza of Brazil. Sibilla Faccolli of Brazil, who won Bronze last year in Ljubljana also lost her first fight.
For the hostnation Austria it was a perfect start: Magdalena Krssakova won the 63-category, defeating Szabina Gerscak of Hungary in the final. In the same category Michaela Polleres finished 5th. She will represent Austria at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing in August this year as well as Szabina Gercsak for Hungary in the second edition of these games.
In the medal ranking, Azerbaidjan leads with 3 Gold-, 2 Silver- and 1 Bronze medals, followed by Russia (1/2/4), France (1/1/0), Brazil (1/1/0), Germany (1/1/0), and Austria (1/0/0).
12 Nations won medals.
We are looking forward to seeing high quality fights in the categories women -44, -48, -52 and -57 kg and men -81, -90, -100 and over 100kg on Day 2.
