The EJU community is a success. Last week the 2000th community member. We thank Timo Lepistö from Finland to make this milestone come true.
Lepistö is one of the fans of the EJU website. He started judo in 1973 and has always followed international judo.
Lepisto comes from the city of Porvoo and is a black belt judoka (1st. Dan). He was never a top fighter at very high level after his junior years but in his own country he remembers Arto “Tintti” Raekorpi and he used to practice randori with Reino Fagerlund amongst others.
“I’m mainly active in grass root judo these days, coaching juniors in our local club Shirokawa in Porvoo and also chairing the club.”
The 49-year old Lepisto is a lawyer by profession and has three children. One of them, Santeri (16 years), is practicing and competing in judo.
Lepistö however has always been interested in both backgrounds and philosophical aspects of judo as well as judo techniques. Lepistö: “In June I actually came to EJU site to follow the cadet European Championships in Slovenia. The new EJU site looks good and are easy to use and I very much liked the video coverage from the European Cadet Championships, that was great.”
“I hope in the future you will also have some of the fights stored and archived for later viewing. Ideally all mats, so a camera for each tatami.
“I regularly visit Finnish national judo association site, southern Finland local site and of course our local club shirokawa.com.
Of the international sites I visit judoinside.com, judovision.org, international judo federation, Kodokan and judoinfo.com. Random also other pages, depending on current competitions.”
Lepistö is obviously a big fan of international judo. His favourites list is actually too long, but some he realy likes to mention: “In the past Neil Adams, Toshihiko Koga, and nowadays Ryoko Tamura-Tani, Benjamin Darbelet, Min-Ho Choi, Tamerlan Tmenov, Kosei Inoue and Craig Fallon.”
In Finland he thinks the major talents are Vadud Balatkhanov (U20), Anni Ikälä, Juho Reinvall, Valtteri Jokinen.
We thank Timo and all other judo fans for becoming a member of the EJU community.