The European Judo Championship open today at the Vienna velodrome. The judokas will compete in individual and team competitions over four days. Russia's judokas are top medal contenders in all the weight divisions.
Despite the natural disasters that have paralysed European air traffic for an entire week, most participants successfully arrived at the tournament, albeit with a slight delay. The Russian men's team, which was attending a training camp in England, was especially creative in making its way to Vienna. The team took a train from London to Brussels, which is a stone's throw from Austria. The women's team was lucky enough to travel from Moscow by plane when the Austrian authorities lifted the ban on flights to Vienna.
The Russian team arrived in Vienna with almost all the top wrestlers on the roster. The coaches only had to replace several athletes in the heavyweight divisions. Three-time world champion Alexander Mikhailin ruptured his knee ligaments and was substituted by his back-up, Russian champion Soslan Janayev. The latter, however, also suffered an injury.
The injured athletes were replaced by promising wrestlers Renat Saidov and Dmitry Sterkhov. In the women's team, two-time European champion Yelena Ivashchenko was replaced by Russia's most famous female judoka Tea Donguzashvili, the bronze medal winner at the 2004 Olympic Games.
The other weight divisions haven't faced any problems. In the individual competitions, Ezio Gamba, the head coach of the men's team, decided to test his promising young athletes. In Sunday's team "battle," he placed his chips on "heavy artillery" – last year's world champion Ivan Nifontov, world silver medal winner Kirill Denisov, and European champions Arsen Galstyan and Tagir Khaibulaev.
Anatoly Rakhlin, the coach of the women's team, can count on the reigning European champion Natalya Kuzyutina, Vice European Champion Vera Koval, and Junior European Championship winners Anna Kharitonova and Marta Labazina.
The championship organisers are hoping Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is on a visit to Austria, will attend the tournament this weekend. It's possible that Putin, who is the European Judo Union's honorary president, will decide to personally watch Europe's best athletes perform.
Boris Titov