Coach Martin Pezzei with Fabian Pezzei and Florian Filehner.

Fabian Pezzei wins the Austria Karate Champions Cup

At the “Austria Champions Cup” in Hard (Vorarlberg), Fabian Pezzei from Karate Mühlbach won gold on Sunday, while Florian Filehner took 5th place.

22 January 2024

From: pm

There were great performances by the two 18-year-old top athletes from Karate Mühlbach: Fabian Pezzei from Mühlbach and Florian Filehner from Vals. “We no longer just take part in these international karate tournaments, we can keep up,” says coach Martin Pezzei, who particularly praises the tactical strength of his athletes. In every fight it was necessary to realign the strategy and build up the fighting tactics differently. “Even though we can be happy with a lot, we have seen where we still need to catch up and what we need to improve,” said the trainer, who remains true to Karate Mühlbach’s principle: “If better is possible, good is not good enough .”

Fabian Pezzei fought in the U21, -84kg category. He was able to dominate the preliminary round and the semi-finals. He won the final 1-0. “It was an exciting finale at eye level,” said Fabian Pezzei. Florian Filehner fought in the U21, -75kg category and had enormous bad luck in the pool: in the preliminary round he met the eventual winner, and in the semifinals he met an opponent from Switzerland, number 26 in the world rankings.

Florian Filehner in action. © pm

For Karate Mühlbach, this tournament should neither be overrated nor underrated. “It was an important indicator, but the decisive tournaments are still ahead of us.” Now it is important to continue to invest in each individual training in a focused and targeted manner, “as these are the decisive key to success,” says Pezzei.