Panthers lords it over all at Judo Cup

The finals of the judo cup of Cameroon took place over the weekend in Douala with the Panthers judo club of Yaounde emerging champions in both the men and women’s categories. The finals in both the men and women’s categories pitted Panthers against Jujitsu with Panthers emerging victorious in each category and Jujitsu emerging runners-up in both categories.

The competition brought together eleven men’s clubs and four women’s clubs. The men’s club comprised Panthers, jujitsu, Camrail of Douala, Lion Academy of Doula, Bushido, FAP of Yaounde, Yaounde Sport, College de la Retraite, Kamikaze of Doula, Samurai Yaounde and Becail of Yaounde. The clubs in the women category comprise Panther, jujitsu, Camrail and Lion Academy.

According to the president of the Cameroon judo federation, Alain Christian Kingue, the level of the competition was high as the best clubs of 2014 took part with ninety per cent of the national judo squad equally participating. He said the decision to organize the cup final in Douala was born out of the federation’s policy of taking judo to areas where the sport is not well known so as to encourage people to develop interest in the sport.

Last year he said the competition took place in Bertoua in the East region and next year it will take place in another part of the country. The cup final comes o the heels of the individual championship which took place in May to prepare athletes for the central African championship in the Mauritius Island during which Cameroon won seven bronze medals and one silver, emerging third in the team classification.

Alain Kingue disclosed that they opened the season with the championship in the lower categories; minims, cadet and Benjamin so as to groom young talents to assure the relay of talents.

He disclosed that Cameroon will be taking part in the first ever African championship to take place from October 27th in Gabon and the Open Africa competition which serves as qualifiers for the 2016 Olympic Games to take place in Rio de Janeiro. He also announced that there will be a competition christened, ‘Kimono d’Or’ on the 20th of December in the country.