03. 04. 2016
Košice, Ruse BUL (29.3.-3.4.2016) After the Easter holidays, the U23 European Championships were held in the Bulgarian city of Ruse. The tournament started with "Greco-Roman," continued with women's fights, and culminated in freestyle, which included the Košice wrestlers Jakub Sýkora and Michael Bodnár. The freestyle wrestlers traveled with national coach Jozef Lohyňa and club coach Štefan Csorba. The president of the ZK Košice club, Ján Tokár Jr., also made the long journey to see the boys, to especially encourage the older of the two, Michael Bodnár, who met expectations but was just a step away from the coveted medal.
On the penultimate day of the European Championship, Jakub SÝKORA wrestled in the 65 kg weight class. The draw assigned him a preliminary round match with Israeli E. Gasanov, to whom Jakub was no match and after a technical superiority of 0:10, he said goodbye to further fights at the U23 European Championships. "Jakub Sýkora replaced Gabriel Tysz at short notice, whose health problems did not allow him to start. Kubo more or less went to the tournament for the purpose of a sparring partner, to help his club colleague Mišo in training and warm-up before the matches." - added the national coach.
At the end of the tournament, Michael BODNÁR competed in the 86 kg weight class, for whom this was his last appearance in the U23 category. In the quarterfinals, however, he was no match for the Georgian I. Mtsituri 0:11. As the Georgian made it to the final, Mišo got a chance for a rematch. In the repechage, he met the home wrestler E. Rusev, whom he defeated 5:4, and with the victory, he secured his participation in the evening fights for the bronze medal. In the Bulgarian arena, our promising representative stood against the Turk K. Yazici, over whom he won 1:0 in the first period. The second period was more successful for the Turkish representative and ultimately the entire match. 2:5 and the loss of our wrestler meant fifth place, but in this Olympic year, it is the greatest success for Slovak wrestling so far. Jozef Lohyňa briefly commented on the performance of his charge: "Mišo fulfilled the goal, to wrestle for a medal. After the first round, where he lost smoothly 0:11 to Mtsituri (GEO), he concentrated on the important match with Rusev (BUL), which he won 5:4 and guaranteed him a fight for a medal. In the fight for bronze against the TUR, Mišo wrestled his best match I have ever seen him wrestle, he met all the attributes in the fight for a medal."
We would like to express our thanks on behalf of the entire wrestling club to everyone who is involved in the preparation of our wrestlers for top events. Thanks especially go to Michael Bodnár himself, who was not afraid of the opportunity and proved at the European Championship that even our small Slovakia has wrestlers who, with their honest work, are approaching the world's elite.