The 31st European Youth Go Championships, Youth Pair Go and EGF Youth Teams Cup took place at Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, a UNESCO World Heritage site which is surrounded by amazing nature, waterfalls and, for this half week, a lot of snow fall as well.



This year, there were three age categories, quite disputed, with 128 participants from 14 countries and a very decent amount of strong players.

Many events meaning many games meaning many mistakes, several teachers were there to commentate on the games and give tips to the players, in particular Lukas Podpera 7d, Ioan Elian Grigoriu 6d and Mirta Medak 3d.

In the U12 category...

It looked like everything was set once Larion Syrotkin 3d (UA) had won against the other favourite, Tan Tan 2d (DE), but in fact it was stressful up to the very end of the 6th round, as Denys Lototskyi 1k (UA) beat Larion by half a point! In another final upset, Mihaly Papp-Szilard 2k (SK) beat Tan Tan to get the 3rd place.

Results:

Best girl: 🇦🇹 Lilly Hu 1k
🥇 🇺🇦 Larion Syrotkin 3d (5/6)
🥈 🇺🇦 Denys Lototskyi 1k (5/6)
🥉 🇸🇰 Mihaly Papp-Szilard 2k (4/6)

In the U16 category...

This was where breathing became a difficult.
Proving he had improved very much lately, Jan Komin 4d (CZ) managed to outplay the favourite Stjepan Medak 6d (HR) on the 3rd round, but lost just after to Bartik Dach 4d (CZ).
As Bartik had to play Stjepan on the 5th round, it could become a SOS* lottery, so the atmosphere was very tense.
Stjepan won against Bartik.
But eventually, Bartik had the best SOS and became the champion!
 
*SOS is the Sum of Opponent Scores (the more they win, the higher it is), it is often used as a criteria in pairing and ranking.

Results:

Best girl: 🇺🇦 Mariia Chernova 1d
🥇 🇨🇿 Bartik Dach 4d (5/6)
🥈 🇭🇷 Stjepan Medak 6d (5/6)
🥉 🇨🇿 Jan Komin 4d (5/6)

In the U21 category...

In the U21, the winner would be selected to go to the Globis Cup in Japan in June, giving an extra motivation to become the champion.
Among the big favourites, there was of course the 2025 U18 Champion Olesia Malko 4d (UA), who had been training in China earlier this year, Yuze Xing 6d (DE), who had played the pro qualifier last year, and Davide Bernardis 6d (IT).
Other rapidly improving players were there to win as well, such as Ondrej Kralik 4d (SK), the European student champion, and Roko Crvelin 4d (HR).
One of the key games was the fight between Davide and Yuze, pretty...original, let's say, and won by Yuze. Yuze didn't fear much in this event it seems, playing calmly and powerfuly.
On the other hand, an epic game happened between Davide and Olesia, with the expression "throwing table" and "turning tables" a bit confused on the goban.
Eventually, Davide won it.
Finally, Yuze had won everything, Davide only lost to Yuze, and then it was again a SOS battle for the 3rd place, between Roko and Ondrej, who had both lost only to Davide and Yuze.
Roko took the 3rd place.

Results:

Best girl: 🇺🇦 Olesia Malko 4d
🥇 🇩🇪 Yuze Xing (6/6)
🥈 🇮🇹 Davide Bernardis 6d (5/6)
🥉 🇭🇷 Roko Crvelin 4d (4/6)

Youth Pair Go

Because there is never enough of Go, in the evenings of the first days, there was the Youth Pair Go taking place.
One great thing with Pair Go is that we always know for a fact that everything can happen, and being "ahead" is purely a fictional way to look at the game in general.
After the few rounds, the results were:

🥇 🇷🇴 Sara-Maria Ghetu 1d and 🇮🇹 Davide Bernardis 6d!
🥈 🇦🇹 Lilly Hu 1k and 🇭🇷 Stjepan Medak 6d
🥉 🇦🇹 Cherry Hu 3k and 🇭🇷 Roko Crvelin 4d

Congratulations!

1st EGF Youth Teams Cup

Because there is nev...ah, we already said that....well, doesn't matter!
Because there is never enough of Go, on the evening of the Saturday and on Sunday, the 1st EGF Youth Teams Cup took place.
This new tournament was aimed to qualify teams for special international team events in Asia.
As five teams had registered (Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Romania and Ukraine), there was a first round between Romania and Austria, followed by semifinals and finals.

The final opposed Czechia with Croatia, with a very nice revenge match between Stjepan Medak 6d and Bartik Dach 5d (after the EYGC, he reached 5d!), and the small final Ukraine against Romania.

In the final, Karlo Vlahovic 2d (HR) won the 3rd board, giving a crucial point to the Croatian team...but, Bartik won the revenge match, and Jan Komin also won in a tough game against Teo Sladetic!
Meanwhile, Ukraine won 3-0 against Romania.

🥇 Czechia
🥈 Croatia
🥉 Ukraine
🏅 Romania




After that last prize giving, the event was finally having no more games on the schedule, so everyone was invited to go home.

That was an amazing many-events half week, led by the magistral organizing team and Croatian Go Alliance. Congratulations and bravo for such a success!

All info - https://eygc2026.hgos.hr/

Results on the EGD: 
U12
U16
U21

The games were broadcast (7 boards), you can find them here, and live reviewed on Twitch by Benjamin Dréan-Guénaïzia 1p and Tanguy Le Calvé 1p (Teachers of the EGF Academy for Youth players)

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Thanks to Raluca Ghetu and Damir Medak for the photos and live updates along the event!