At the 2008 State Championship on March 1 in Schwerte, the Neandertal Kyudo Club brought home both the team and individual titles to Erkrath.

Twelve teams, each consisting of three archers, competed to determine the state’s best teams.
After the Neandertal 1 “Mokkei” team had to settle for second place in 2007, Johannes Maringer, Günter Dauner, and Reinhard Kollotzek confidently secured the title again this year. Twenty-three of 36 arrows hit the target, with Johannes Maringer also recording the best individual performance with 10 out of 12 hits. This secured the victory ahead of the joint team from SSF Bonn and the Cologne Kyudo Group (20 hits) and the host team, Kyudodojo Ruhr e.V. (19 hits).

Thirty-three archers were registered for the individual competition. After the preliminary round, in which four arrows were shot by each archer, seven archers from Erkrath qualified for the round of 16. In the final round, two archers compete against each other, and the one who hits the target better advances. While the veterans dominated the team competition, Mario Reinhardt from Haan, a newcomer, became the state champion. In his first championship appearance, he demonstrated exceptional focus by scoring four out of four possible hits in the preliminary round and kept his composure in the subsequent head-to-head matches as well. Peter Knipper (Kyudojo Ruhr e.V., Schwerte) and Caglar Engin (Kyudojo Nordrhein Köln e.V.) took second and third place, respectively. Johannes Maringer from Erkrath finished in fourth place.

“Our club couldn’t have done any better,” said Reinhard Kollotzek, the club’s vice president and founder, after the competition. “Outstanding individual and team performances secured our victory.”

Automatically translated by DeepL