KiralyTeam

Not a full week ago in the beautiful capitol of Greece was being organized a WAKO World Cup. It called Athens Challenge and if you mention this name somewhere in the world you can be sure real kickboxers identify one of the best European martial art tournament in it. Personally, this competition is truly one of my best I have ever participated in. The reason could be an expert’s heart in its organisation. You know who I am talking about, Nikos Memmos, sport idol of thousands creates a lovely atmosphere around this event, year by year.

On day 1 open category and team event for cadets, juniors and seniors was organized. A great idea of hosts to make open category and team challenge for the youngs, too. I think, it moves them forward. Cadets and juniors could fight like seniors in open, they can feel how strange fight against a bigger one, so they can learn from it.

In seniors category, we started the challenge with more than 50 competitors in men’s and more than 25 competitors in women’s open. Big numbers on a big competition! Almost every top fighters came from Europe. In women’s open’ semi finals Anna Kondar this time beat Luisa Gullotti (rematch of Golden Gloves open final) and in the other one Giorgio Lico’s very fast student the world champ Giulia Cavallaro won against the one Gloria De Bei on a thrilling match. In the final Anna could win, and took her first open gold in this year.

At men’s many great fighters started competing for the title. Mimmo De Marco, Harald Schmidt, Tamas Imre, Manuel Esposito, Grillo Di Leo and I could say many more names even. Finally, in the best four Laszlo Gombos, Mark McDermott, Andreas AnGelopoulos and me stayed. In the semis in the night gala’s program Andreas beat Gombos in front of his home fans by few points and I could also beat Mark. When, i saw one of Andreas’ fight before finals it seemed he is in a pretty good shape after beating Grillo. Unfortunately, I was right (just joking ). He reached the final, and in my mind went through a thought, it will be hard and not just because of his home fans. It was, but on a really exciting match I won. Fortunately, I chose the right strategy. Certainly, I was very happy to took the title for the third time in a row.

On team events KiralyTeam’s (Barbara Szendrei, Anna Kondar) woman team won against BestFighter’s (Valentina Barbieri, Luisa Gullotti, Gloria De Bei). Hard fights as always, but this time a very strange thing happened. Fans got learned a new name. Sister of Richard’s name Mercedes Veres, Istvan Kiraly’s very young talent who was fighting as third one and kept several point leading for her team. Great and smart fight, it was! Don’t forget her name, maybe few years later, You will meet that again!

At men’s team challenge, of course, lot of teams participated including Ireland’s, BestFighter’s, Germany’s, etc. Beating BestFighter in the semi final, Greece’s mixed team (with also Andreas AnGelopoulos and Manuel Esposito) met us in the final. I felt that, on that night we were strong together (KiralyTeam’s members: Richard Veres, Laszlo Gombos, Tamas Imre, Krisztian Jaroszkievicz and me). Finally, KiralyTeam won on an exciting match, and we defend our team title for the second time. Day 1 closed.

On the other day, in the individual categories audience could see many great fights. 63 kg was amazing again. In the best 8 Richard Veres, Jason Doyle, Manuel Esposito, Achilleas Foufounis, Vincenzo Gagliardi was fighting. Every match could be a final. Finally, Manuel took the 1st place against home guy, Foufounis. Don’t miss it next time! In 69  kg Richard showed how can fight in an upper weight category successfully. In the semi he beat Mimmo, then Timmy Sarantoudis who was fighting in a great shape during the whole tournament. Keep it up, Timmy! Was great to see your style. Richard ruled 69 this time. In 74 kg Italians took first and also second place. They made a funny game in the final. Check it on Youtube! They are crazy.

79 kg has also very good best four. In the first semi Harald beat Mark McDermott. On that match Harald was leading several points, and at the end he won by t.k.o. In the other one I fought against Grillo. Now, I must say that, I really like to fight against him. He bring the best out from me everytime, and it’s a good feeling. In the final I met Harald again first after World Championship’s final. It was really close as always. Harald started to use a new style this time, and I could not conform perfectly to it. It was being draw till the end, when 4 seconds before end of match I did a very unsmart attack with hand, what Harald could easily defend with a strong sidekick. I could not do anything after it, did not have enough time. He won deservedly with a very good strategy.

I learnt a lot after analysing this match! Never forget to analyse after a winning or a losing! This way ONLY you can move yourself forward, and this way ONLY you can be better. Am I right, mate?

I cannot miss mentioning Krisztian Jaroszkievicz’s performance on that day. You know Krisztian, he is a little bit crazy when something is about fighting (maybe not a little bit). He was registrated into 84, 89 and +89 categories. Was happened he won all of them. Can you imagine? Won in 3 categories? I just have to congratulate to him for that . Hope, we’ll see it next time, too!

See You in Dublin! Let’s talk here until then!

How I saw it: Golden Gloves 2010

Tags: Athens Challenge 2010, Grand Champion, Greece, KiralyTeam, Team Event, tournament, Zsolt Moradi

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 13th, 2010 at 20:09. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.