The Arena Riga hosted the first day of the Cadet European Championships in Latvia. With the event spread over three days, the first weight categories to crown new continental champions were; -40kg, -50kg, -44kg, -55kg, 48kg and-60kg.
As always with cadet tournaments, the atmosphere was incredible despite the lack of spectators, the teams rallied behind their teammates, applauding the first athletes on the tatami.
There were some early exits for tops seeds including 2019 cadet world champion and European silver medallist, Mamira LUCA (HUN), but given the long absence for the cadet athletes, only three cup events have preceded this, it was expected that big changes would have occurred since the 2019 success.
It was a great first day for the Azerbaijan team, who tallied an incredible six medals, three of which were gold, the remaining three went to France, Russia and Israel. The French gold was swiped by Pauline CUQ in the -44kg category and was the only #1 seed to be crowned cadet European champion.
Source: www.eju.net
