The Open Dutch 2023 edition was held on Saturday the 28th of January in our home city of Helmond once again. Although registration started relatively slow, we still ended up with approximately 650 competitors, more than 1200 registrations, from 88 teams coming from 18 countries from all over the world. Because of the high quality of the competitors, it was described by many as a mini European Championship, with mini referring to the fact that it is a 1-day tournament!
The atmosphere was very friendly throughout the day, although we witnessed some extremely competitive matches! As always, the head of umpires was GM Coos van den Heuvel and sabum Emiel Kloor. GM Harry Vones was responsible for the Sportdata system. Of course, we had many volunteers, referees, first aid team, and sponsors, whom contributed greatly to the success of the tournament, and we want to thank you for that as we could not have done this without your help!
We’ve seen too many great matches and finals to name them all, but some did stand out, so we want to call them out. The winner of the “overall best A class” was Solovey Team from Ukraine, closely followed by Team West Norway. The winner of “overall best B class” was Team Dolny Slask from Poland, closely followed by NE-Sports from Wales. In patterns, competitors from Norway shined, whereas in sparring Scotland scored really well in the senior category!
Another thing that stood out was the fact that the female senior competitors from The Netherlands managed to win 4 classes:
Yra Labrie (-56), Sam Delrock (-62), Maartje Gubbels (-68), and Nina Meppelder (+68).
Filippos Filippidis from Team Dolny Slask (Poland) managed to win both his individual pole as well as the overall class, the same goes for
Sam Delrock, Nina Meppelder, and Kayden Lingers. This is a huge achievement, and once again congratulations from our side!
Before I forget, as many of you have already asked, the 2024 edition is scheduled to take place on Saturday the 27th of January 2024! Note it down, and share it with your teammates, as we hope to see many of you again next year!
