Olympian judoka takes a year break from international competition
Zack Piontek from Tuks, who has established himself in recent years as one of the world's top judokas, decided to take a sabbatical with his sports career for now.
Local Olympic judoka, Zack Piontek from TuksSport, has decided to take a break from competing internationally due to family and work commitments.
“It certainly was not an easy decision to make but sometimes one has to make realistic choices. I am married and we are looking towards starting a family. I have also started working and it is important to me to be successful in my career. Therefore, I have decided to take a sabbatical. I will still be training and I plan to get more involved in coaching young judokas. Who knows I might compete in one or two local events just to have fun. I will make a final decision regarding the future of my judo career at the end of this year.”
Piontek can justly claim that he has achieved quite a bit over the past two years to get people to take notice of what is happening in South Africa judo.
A definite highlight for him is that he got to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Another great achievement for him was winning gold in the heavyweight category at the 2014 Commonwealth Games which took place in Glasgow.
In the build up to the Rio Games Piontek became a consistent medallist at the international tournaments that he competed in. He has managed to win two silver medals at the African Championships. He also scooped a bronze medal at the Pan American Open World Cup in Lima and finished 5th in a Grand Slam in Tyumen.
“When I started competing internationally my opponents normally got quite excited when they saw that they had to fight against me. It was considered as a nice warm up match, or a ‘quick win’. All of that changed in 2013 when I won my first gold medal in an international competition that counted towards the International Judo Federation’s ranking system. The real breakthrough for me was winning the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. That is when people started to remember my name,” he explained.
“The Olympic Games did not go according to plan in spite of the fact that my coach Nikola Filipov and I did everything in our power to ensure that I would be at my best. It was just bad day at the office and I lost my first fight. But I will forever cherish the honour of representing South Africa at the Games,” Piontek said.
“Nikola is an amazing coach. What I really appreciate about him is the fact that he stays up to date with what is happening in the world of international judo. In other words, Nikola goes out of his way to ensure that the training we get is exactly the same as that of the highly ranked judokas,” Piontek concluded.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord onFacebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
