On October 3-4, the European Championships will be held in Latvia, Riga – in Full Contact Karate Shinkyokushin. J-16, U-21 and Openweight for seniors. We take a look at senior openweight.
The championship will in total attract just over 500 participants, and the number tells something about how big these events have become. There has been a lot of growth in the European region for many years, and it doesn’t seem to stop anytime soon.
What you can start to see is a tendency for athletes from given nations to choose other championships due to politics or level. When it comes to level, this is often related to seeding – which means that the very best always meet the least meritorious in the first match.
From the perspective of a nation with athletes at a somewhat lower level, the economic cost becomes too high, and the sporting benefits are too low when this (seeding) is repeated systematically in every major championship.
This year’s openweight class for women holds a respectable number, and as we will take a closer look – it also holds a top level that is world-class.
The class has 32 athletes distributed across 11 nations. Lithuania and Hungary are competing with 15 athletes alone, which says something about the differences in Europe, especially since several nations are not competing.
In this line up, we can look forward to some of the best athletes in the world. These are athletes who have been on the World Championship podium before, and are topping the European Championships in their respective classes.
The absolute most profiled and pre-favorites as such are Brigita Gustaitytė / Lithuania, Ivanka Stefanova Popova / Bulgaria, Lili Mezo / Hungary, Marija Sekunda / Lithuania, Csenge Tóth / Hungary, Mirjam Björklund / Sweden. Note that we are taking the tip of the iceberg with this list, there are many well-deserved ones further, but we keep in mind that it is openweight.
It is difficult to predict everything, but we would be surprised if athletes like Brigita Gustaitytė, Ivanka Stefanova Popova, Lili Mezo, Marija Sekunda are not at the top after the end of the day.
A decisive factor will be which way you get related to the “draw”. There are big extremes when it comes to growth and size difference between the athletes competing. We are talking about some people facing athletes who are almost twice their size.
Photo by the never resting: Okiem Sportowca
Does the biggest one have to win? No, it doesn’t necessarily have to happen – but experience shows that it is athletes in the upper weight class who have placed highest.
That said, fighters like Alona Veresniak / Ukraine, Brigita Svinkūnaitė / Lithuania, Lili Litvák / Hungary, Nika Jakobovic / Croatia – from the lightest categories very tough, very good footwork and keeps a very high pace and you have to hunt them down and dominate them before the weight has an impact on the judges’ outcome. Especially in the preliminary rounds, where the decision on weight comes earlier than in the quarter and semi-finals.
If we had to choose, we would look towards Brigita Gustaitytė and Ivanka Stefanova Popova as a head ahead of the rest – well proven on several occasions too.
But with 32 athletes, there are many matches, and a lot can happen. And there are also factors that athletes do not control themselves – such as referees intervene of various kinds – which can indicate a decision on warnings – and not least: it is openweight, fights can be decided on weight too.
Ivanka Stefanova Popova won the Openweight European Championship in 2018, 2022, 2024 – as well as all other merits, but is an athlete who has pace high enough to hang with lightweights and tough enough to deal with those in a higher weight class.
2021 Lily Mezo has also shown herself to be of the same character, winner of the European Openweight Championship in 2021, and she also won in 2019, in Prague.
In addition to the ones mentioned above, we have several good athletes ready. Many are in the middle of the pack when it comes to weight and merits for that matter, and that means – and they will have an impact on the overall result as well. With so many fights, things will add up throughout the day.
This will undoubtedly be something to look forward to, and it will be very interesting to see how fighting in the women’s class develops. And it might happen that we get to see a fighter take her first EC Open-Weight title as well.