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German Budesliga - JC Eberswalde against JJJC Hattigen

(Detailed and captioned photos at the bottom of the page)

The German Budesliga is a unique series of judo tournaments in Europe. German teams are allowed to use foreign fighters in the domestic league matches sometimes from as far a field as North America or Asia . Each match sees the teams fight twice with fourteen contests in all.    

Unlike normal judo team matches the fights do not follow the weight categories from the lightest to the heaviest. The order in which the weights are fought is subject to a random draw at the beginning of the tournament so that the last fighter is not always the super-heavyweight +100 kgs category. This ensures that the middle or lightest weights may have the heavy responsibility of possibly deciding the tournament at the last match. Teams may have any number of members (TSV Abensberg - the premier German team - once turned up to a match with 35 team members!) but the fourteen fights are limited to ten fighters - seven contestants in the first match with three changes in the 'return' match. A similar system is followed in the European Club Cup, but there the fights start at the lightest and finish at the heaviest.

Judo Club Eberswalde is a relatively new entrant to the German Bundesliga having started competing three years ago. The team coach is 47 year old Russian, Victor Semenko. He was originally stationed in Eberswalde with the Russian Army. He has now lived there, with his German wife and son, for 17 years. He is a contemporary of 1980 Olympic gold medallist, Shota Khabareli (current Georgian team manager) and the inimitable David Bodaveli, 1981, 86 kgs World bronze medallist.

The wealthier clubs in the Bundesliga are often sponsored by local companies along with league-wide sponsorship organised by the Deutsche Judo Bund. In a short period Eberswalde, under the guidance of team promoter and club President Ronald Kuehn, has enrolled several sponsors and built up a devoted following of more than 750 fans. Their matches always include the razzmatazz of Baseball style cheer leaders and at this match they had a highly professional singing announcer and long-legged, high heeled and scantily clad attractive woman to display the draw to the audience.  Last year the team reached the top of the Bundesliga 2nd Division. This year I suspect that they have their sights on promotion to the prestigious 1st division.

At this match Eberswalde had the benefit of four former European judo champions and silver medallists, Martin Schmidt GER 1995 66kgs champion, Vladimir Dratchko RUS 1994 65 kgs champion,  Ben Sonnemans NED 1996 95 kgs champion and Dimitri Sergueev RUS 1995 95 kgs silver medallist.  Guests that will appear at the club over the next year include National Coach and past World Champion Detlef Ultsch, 1983 World Champion Andreas Preschel, 1980 Olympic Gold Medallist Dietmar Lorenz, World Silver Medallist and current German super-heavyweight Frank Mueller, GDR National Coach Henry Hempel, former European Champion Rudolf Hendel, National Coach at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics Dietmar Hoetger and GDR former European Champion Karl Heinz Lehman.

Fighting away from home in their first season of the Budesliga, JJJC Hattigen were overwhelmed in the first half of the evening going down 7 wins and 47 points to zero. The second round was a shade more encouraging for the away team after Schmidt, Dratscko and Sonnemans were left out of the Eberswalde team. That half's tally had 4 Eberswalde wins to 3 Hattigen wins giving Eberswalde a total of 11 wins to Hattingen's 3 wins and putting Eberswalde top of the Northern half of the 2nd division.

David Finch, 12th April 2004

20040410_1002_Eberswalde_Logo.jpg 2004 Eberswalde Bundesliga Tournament UK Poster Bundesliga, Germany Tournament poster	20040410_1010_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany Opening Draw to decide the order in which the weights are fought The draw for the sequence of weight contests takes place	20040410_1013_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany Opening events and audience warm-up by the club's youngsters seen here bowing before entertaining the audience. Children from the Eberswalde Judo Club work-out in front of many of their parents.
20040410_1035_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany Team Event Miscellaneous The team of JJJC Hattingen	20040410_1037_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany Team Event Miscellaneous Eberswalde team	20040410_1053_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany Team Event Miscellaneous Eberswalde displays the trophy they won last season
20040410_1059_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 06 Men under 100 kgs - Heavyweight Maurice Spek JCE beat Roland Kueknapfel JJJCH	20040410_1064_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 03 Men under 73 kgs - Light middleweight Vladimir Dratschko JCE (RUS) beat Roman Paris JJJCH	20040410_1067_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 03 Men under 73 kgs - Light middleweight Vladimir Dratschko JCE (RUS) beat Roman Paris JJJCH
20040410_1069_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 07 Men over 100 kgs - Super heavyweight Ben Sonnemans JCE (NED) beat Pascal Paris JJJCH by 10 points with an unusual waki-gatame.	20040410_1070_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 07 Men over 100 kgs - Super heavyweight Ben Sonnemans JCE (NED) beat Pascal Paris JJJCH by 10 points with an unusual waki-gatame.	20040410_1071_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 07 Men over 100 kgs - Super heavyweight Ben Sonnemans JCE (NED) beat Pascal Paris JJJCH by 10 points with an unusual waki-gatame.
20040410_1073_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 07 Men over 100 kgs - Super heavyweight Ben Sonnemans JCE (NED) beat Pascal Paris JJJCH by 10 points with an unusual waki-gatame.	20040410_1077_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai	20040410_1081_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai
20040410_1082_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai	20040410_1083_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai	20040410_1084_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai
20040410_1085_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai	20040410_1088_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round Miscellaneous Rene Jolitz JCE beat Ralf Dittrich JJJCH by ippon with okuri-ashi-barai	20040410_1089_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification
20040410_1092_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification	20040410_1096_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification	20040410_1097_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification
20040410_1098_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification	20040410_1099_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 04 Men under 81 kgs - Middleweight Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan Scheffel JJJCH by disqualification Martin Schmidt JCE beat Stefan...	20040410_1100_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 01 Men under 66 kgs - Lightweight Rustam Ozdoev JCE threw Raf Kerckhoven JJJCH for ippon with kata-guruma
20040410_1101_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 01 Men under 66 kgs - Lightweight Rustam Ozdoev JCE threw Raf Kerckhoven JJJCH for ippon with kata-guruma	20040410_1102_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 01 Men under 66 kgs - Lightweight Rustam Ozdoev JCE threw Raf Kerckhoven JJJCH for ippon with kata-guruma	20040410_1106_Eberswalde.tif 20040410 Eberswalde JC, Germany Germany 1st Round 01 Men under 66 kgs - Lightweight Rustam Ozdoev JCE threw Raf Kerckhoven JJJCH for ippon with kata-guruma

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