Richard Vaniukevich from Fudoshin Judo Club took a silver medal in one of the strongest junior tournaments in Europe, the Antwerp Open 2012 in Belgium, which took place on 9 January. He fought in an older group U-15 in a category -34kg. Winning two fights by Ippon and losing third by yuko, Richard came first in the pool to fight a judoka from the Netherlands in the semi-final. A confident win by Ippon in the first minute brought him in the final where he met another judoka from the Netherlands who previously won all his matches by Ippon. There was no score in normal time where both judokas had concentrated on kumi-kata and gave each other very few opportunities to attack. Golden score time had to decide the winner which was used more effectively by the Dutch judoka who scored yuko with a kouch-gari with just three seconds left to the end of the match. After missing out on a medal in the last two competitions in France & Holland, winning a silver medal has been a great reward for Richard's hard work during the prevoius year.

The other IJA competitor at that event was Bearach Gleeson from Daigokan Judo Club. Bearach fought in category -50kg. Following his silver medal in Holland, this competition proved a little tougher for Bearach. He won one of his fights in the pool by Ippon against a strong Belgium judoka but lost the other two to more experienced Dutch competitors but showed a great spirit and huge potential for improvement.