25/10/2023
Dear friends,
On behalf of the Česká federace Kendó and the Toru Giga Cup Council we would like to express our deepest thanks to all, who have participated in the 30th Toru Giga Cup 2023 last weekend! We really appreciate that so many of you have decided to join our event and we are amazed by the energy you have brought to Prague. Your Kendo and spirit was beyond fantastic and is a real inspiration for us all. Respect!
What we all have jointly accomplished:
• The number of participants rose to amazing 150, more than ever before! Awesome! Thank you for your support!
• The level of competitors also rose quite significantly, we were astonished to watch so many great matches in every category. There were so many Europe‘s famous competitors – just look at the results below and see for yourself.
• The level of refereeing has also improved massively. May high level senseis have joined us for the event and we are very gratuful for them. We also focused on having only dedicated referees for the tournaments and with level of 5th Dan and higher (with some few exceptions, thank you guys!), we believe that this has meant a big deal.
And finally:
• Despite we are sometimes rivals inside the shiaijo, there was an obvious spirit of friendship transcending borders and nations present during the event. This was the primary reason of establishing this event back in the 1980s and we are happy, that today’s generation of Kendokas continues in the same path.
We are also very grateful to all members of the organization team, who has been working very hard to prepare and run the event. They are too many to be named here, but please think about them! They are members of the Czech Kendo Federation and three Prague Kendo clubs: Kacubó Kenrikai 渇望剣理会, Kensei dojo and Sandómon 山道門 . Thank you very very much! Seeing all the members of these theoretically competitive clubs working together with smiles and friendly spirit was very heartwarming and is another reason why this event is so important!
And please let’s express our deepest gratitude to all the senseis and referees! Their job was incredibly hard and they did an excellent job. One of the referees was measuring his movements on Saturday and believe it or not, he has made over 15 000 steps! If you add all the stress and extremely high level of focus for so many hours, you may start to understand that men and women with red ties are doing so much for us, and we rarely appreciate it enough. Cheers to all the referees, thank you so much! The referees were: Mr. Jörg Potrafki (Renshi 7th Dan - Austria/Germany), Mr. Livio Lancini (Kyoshi 7th Dan - Italy), Mrs. Dance Yokoo (Renshi 7th Dan - Germany), Mr. Jindrich Ziegelheim (Renshi 7th Dan - Czechia), Mrs. Jana Ziegelheimová (7th Dan - Czechia), Mr. Mihai Dutescu (6th Dan - Romania), Mr. Jan Cílek (6th Dan - Czechia), Mr. Filip Baumruk (6th Dan - Czechia), Mr. Norbert Király (5th Dan - Hungary), Mr. Tomáš Kyncl (5th Dan - Czechia), Mr. Martin Fritz (5th Dan - Czechia), Mr. Daniel Häckl (5th Dan - Czechia).
Please allow us to thank also our sponsors: Coffee Source (www.coffeesource.eu) and Kawki Wróble (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083220068232)
In the future we will continue to improve the event, beside other stuff we will focus on making the Saturday programme less time consuming.
As we usually say, it is not the most important thing, but please check you the results:
Junior tournament
1st place: Mikuláš Mistecký (Czechia)
2nd place: Ezra Béky (Hungary)
3rd places: Ondřej Knotek (Czechia) & Matouš Frömel (Czechia)
Fighting Spirit Award: Artur Churtajev (Czechia)
40+ tournament
1st place: Krzystof Bosak (Poland)
2nd place: Jan Cílek (Czechia)
3rd places: Filip Baumruk (Czechia) and Norbert Király (Hungary)
Fighting Spirit Award: Andreas Linhart (Austria)
Ladies tournament:
1st place: Kiyoko Moutarde (France)
2nd place: F***y Bloc (France)
3rd places: Manuela Hoflehner (Austria) & Marine Vandenberghe (France)
Fighting Spirit Award: Stéphanie De Backer (France)
Men tournament:
1st place: Koichi Nakabayashi (France)
2nd place: Hiroto Takahashi (France/Japan)
3rd places: Makoto Ito (France) & Kévin Champagne (France)
Best Fighting Spirit: Walter McCahon (New Zealand)
Team tournament:
1st: The Daltons (Ito, Nakabayashi, Chodkowski, Hidrio, Champagne)
2nd: Debananas (Gardzielewski, Pimentel, Moreno, Thais Kimura, Tadeu Kimura)
3rd: Paris-Check (Neumann, Loidi, Le Hars, Takahashi, Lemonnier)
3rd: Psyduck Pack (Bosak, Babińska, Kaczor, Bilousova, Lorenc)
Fighting Spirit Award: Lucie Hřibová (Czechia)
Congratulations to everyone! Also congratulations to all members who have passed their Dan exams!
We are very much looking forward to see you all next year!
Best Regards,
Members of the Toru Giga Cup Council: Tomáš Berger, Jiří Čapek, Tomáš Kyncl (and with dozens of members of the organization team)
