The Flemish Judo Federation introduced 1996 Olympic Champion Udo Quellmalz as new head coach. At a press conference Quellmalz was presented for this position for this Olympic period. Last February the federation lost Mark van der Ham who became technical director for Azerbaijan.
Van der Ham was definitely the key factor for Matthias Casse’s success who became World Champion at junior level under his guidance followed by world silver and last year the World title and Olympic bronze medal.
Technical director Koen Sleeckx is happy with the successor of Van der Ham.
The new German top coach must guide Matthias Casse to an Olympic title: “I know how to deal with that pressure, you can’t get that from a book.”
Quellmalz has experience at the highest level as an athlete but also as a coach. He was a successful coach for the Great Britain and Austria teams and with Ludwig Paischer as coach, he experienced the Olympic final in 2008.
Matthias Casse is also happy with the choice for Quellmalz and the judoka were also involved in the choice of the new coach. “We were allowed to indicate what we were looking for and which aspects we found good and less good with the previous coach Mark van der Ham. It turned out not to be an obvious quest, but Udo was the best match of those criteria.”
