Up, down, up, down…
St. Petersburg's Baltic Sea Cup is a traditional team invitational tournament, where the following team was sent this year:
58 kg Toni Lahtinen, Loviisa Taekwondo (Mustafa Yevloyev, St. Petersburg)
-68 kg Sami Lahtinen, Loviisa Taekwondo
-80 kg Juho Kostiainen, TU11
+80 Teemu Heino, TU11
Coach: Petteri Kauppinen, TU11
Physiotherapist: Juho Ranta, TU11
Technical delegate and team leader: Sampo Pajulampi, TU11
The first setback was felt already on Thursday, when Toni Lahtinen got a new assignment for the rest of his military service, which meant canceling his weekend vacations. The matter was investigated persistently on Friday, but even though the Defense Forces were willing to be flexible, Toni was not included.
Therefore, the young Mustafa Yevloyev from St. Petersburg came to strengthen the team, who, despite his hard effort, was clearly a weaker player than Toni.
In the first round, they faced the first team from Moscow. The whole team had a rough start, and the match ended in a draw after Mustafa and Sami lost their match. When the draw still brought the -58 kilos for the deciding match, and Mustafa couldn't find new drugs, the opening round defeat was a fact.
In the second round, St. Petersburg's second team gave up -58 and -68 kilograms due to injuries. Teemu and Juho handled their part in an exemplary manner.
The bronze medal match took place as an 8-minute match, so that each weight class competed for one minute in two rounds. Manual scoring and flying substitutions were used.
Juho and Teemu's high percentage points in particular brought a clear victory for Finland.
So bring bronze medals and crystal drinking glasses.
At the evening banquet, we discussed cooperation and good help in both directions came about commendably.
