First Intercontinental Judo Hero Challenge

St. Petersburg, Oct 21, 2013: Challenge, The cooperation between the International Judo Federation, the European Judo Union and the Tyumen Region is getting more significant each year. In a press conference that will be held during the SportAccord World Combat Games, the three parties will sign a contract to formally recognise their cooperation.

The development of the Tyumen Judo Federation gets the support of the governor of the Region, Vladimir Yakushev. The IJF and EJU will together organise the first Challenge between teams of Europe and Asia.

This top team event, which has grown from a previous Judo Hero Challenge meeting last year, is again sponsored by the company ECCO Ros. The producer of shoes is the perfect fit to establish this event contract, where also the region of Tyumen gives its support.

The first Intercontinental Judo Hero Challenge will be held at 25 January in Tyumen. A team of judoka from Europe challenges their opponents from Asia to fight. IJF and SportAccord President Mr. Marius Vizer will be present at the press conference as well as World Combat Games Chairman and EJU President Sergey Soloveychik and Mr. Vladimir Yakushev, Governor of Tyumen Region. President of the Russian Judo Federation Vasily Anisimov and ECCO Ros chairman Andrey Shtopel will also attend the signing.

Tyumen will also be the host of the 2014 Grand Slam in Russia. One of the four Grand Slams in the world will now be held in Tyumen; the previous four years Moscow hosted the elite athletes in judo since 2009. For the following three years starting in 2014 Tyumen is the Russian city for the Grand Slam. The other cities for the Grand Slams are Paris, Baku and Tokyo. In 2010 and 2011, more than 50 different countries participated in the Grand Slam of Moscow.

The region of Tyumen is again host of an event, previously the Siberian city successfully organised the World Open Championships in 2011, followed by the European Championships U23 years.

Last year the first ECCO Judo Hero Challenge was held in the Judo Centre of Tyumen, a knockout festival between the top eight fighters in the category U66kg, won by Rok Draksic.

This year the Tyumen Judo Federation organised the IJF World Judo Masters with future World Champions Naohisa Takato (JPN U60), Elkhan Mammadov (AZE U100) and Majlinda Kelmendi (KOS U52) among the winners. The SportAccord World Combat Games, which has featured 15 combat sports in the second edition of the multi sports event is the perfect setting for such an announcement.

Speakers

Marius L. Vizer, President IJF & SportAccord

Vladimir Yakushev, Governor of Tyumen Region

Sergey Soloveychik, EJU President & SportAccord Chairman

Vasily Anisimov, President Russian Judo Federation

Andrey Shtopel, Chairman of ECCO

Location and Program

Itar-Tass/Saint-Petersburg, Shpalernaya street, 37a

14.00: Arrival of the official guests and media representatives

14.10: Speech of the SportAccord and IJF President Marius Vizer

Speech of the World Combat Games Chairman and EJU President, S. Soloveychik

Speech of the Governor of the Tyumen Region Mr. Yakushev

Speech of the President of the Russian Judo Federation V. Anisimov

Contract signing ceremony

Questions/answers session

16:15: End of the ceremony and Press Conference

Russia Tyumen Region major events

• World Open Championships 2011

• European Championships U23 2011

• ECCO Judo Hero Challenge 2012

• IJF World Masters 2013

• Intercontinental Judo Hero Challenge 2014

• IJF Grand Slam 2014. —- IJF