Sara and Aino with medals in Sofia

The Sofia Open G1 tournament took place on March 4-5. in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our club was represented by Tuikku Holopainen, Eddie Quinones, Sara Quinones and Aino Kortelainen.

Tuikku and Eddie applied for competition screens for the cadet European and World Championships. Unfortunately, both missed the goal. Tuikku's opening opponent came from Israel and Tuikku took a clear victory with his precise style. Instead, the Greek in the second round was too hard. The match stretched all the way to the golden point of the overtime, where a small mistake cost a medal and a place in the competition.

Eddie faced a Greek who would have been easy to beat with a basic performance. However, Eddie's work was a bit sloppy in these races and several small mistakes cost him the victory.

Sara only had a final in the children's series. The Cypriot was a clear opponent in the match, and Sara won in quite a superior style.

There were no opponents in Aino's own series, but as a lively girl, Aino competed in a higher weight category. In the semi-final, the representative of Greece was much weaker, while Aino took an overwhelming victory. In the final, there was another Greek who was really tall and strong. Aino couldn't find a way to knock down a hard-kicking opponent and thus brought home a nice silver medal.

The race arrangements work surprisingly well. However, the new judging line was still variable and it caused a lot of headaches for the competitors, from whose point of view the warnings were quite unpredictable in places.

Next, Eddie heads to the Dutch Open next weekend and the rest of the team to Belgium a week later.