"This was the first European Championship I worked as a sports commissioner."
Rustam Orujov, a former judoka of the Azerbaijan national team, told Idman.biz.
He spoke about his activities at the European Judo Championships Juniors Tallinn 2024. Orujov said that this championship requires more responsibility than regular competitions: "Also, there is a lot of work in such international competitions. I also had a heavy burden on my shoulders. But everything went very well. The organization was at a high level. I gained a lot of experience. I believe that what I learned here will be very useful for my future activities. It was the 7th race I participated in during the year. It was my last championship for this year. Next year I will participate in more such competitions. I love my profession very much. Because even though I ended my career as a judo player, I always wanted to stay in judo. I am happy to be with our athletes in the competition."
He also evaluated the performance of the Azerbaijani national team participating in the European Championship: "Each of our judokas gave good results. Our national team rose to the first place. To be the first, leaving behind all the powerful countries like Italy, Georgia, France, is a very high result. This is a great achievement for Azerbaijani judo. I was very happy when our players won medals. My heart couldn't stand it, I tried to motivate them by shouting. I couldn't help but feel like my heart was going to stop when they wrestled. In fact, this is considered a violation of the rules for my profession. But the organizers also understood that I was a former judoka, so they allowed me to support our team."
The Azerbaijani team won 4 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals and took the first place in the overall score of the European Championship. Vusal Galandarzade (73 kg), Suleyman Shukurov (81 kg), Konul Aliyeva (48 kg) and Fidan Alizada (57 kg) secured gold, Nizami Imranov (60 kg) and Aslan Kotsoiev (90 kg) clinched silver, Tuncay Shamil (90 kg) and Kanan Nasibov (+100 kg) won bronze medals.
Banuchichek Huseynli
Idman.biz
