"Our top athletes performed particularly well in this tournament, while others mainly lost to our own athletes in the third or fourth matches."
This statement was made by Sabuhi Zulfugarov, head coach of Azerbaijan's youth taekwondo team, speaking to Idman.biz.
He evaluated the team's performance at the Open Netherlands Championship held in Eindhoven: "We participated in this competition with 24 athletes. Most of them were the top two athletes from the Azerbaijani championship. Our last competition was the Fujairah Open, where we participated with 29 athletes and won 6 medals. Our result here was even better. Honestly, I didn’t expect such a result from the kids all of a sudden because the tournament has been held for 52 years, and strong European athletes participate in it."
The head coach also discussed the upcoming goals: "Our next competition will be the Open Belgium Championship in Lommel in six days, where we will evaluate our athletes again. I hope we can replicate our successful performance there. After returning to Baku, we will have a training camp starting on March 23. Our main goal after that will be to prepare well for the Gymnasiade in April and achieve the best possible result."
Azerbaijan’s youth taekwondo athletes secured 5 gold, 5 silver, and 6 bronze medals at the competition in the Netherlands.
Aytaj Sahed
Idman.biz
