The Borussia Dortmund U19 football and handball teams were crowned Champions of Germany. The same was true for the women's torball side! Meanwhile, young table tennis player Kirill Fadeev won a silver medal in the German Youth Championship. Here is an overview of the sporting success stories from across the club's various departments. 

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BVB Youth Director Wolfgang Springer perhaps summed the 2018/19 season up best with his statement ''it's barely possible for the Black & Yellow youth teams to achieve more success.'' From U9 to U14 level, Borussia Dortmund teams notched up success after success. The U15s stormed their way to the West German Championship, the U16s were crowned champions of the Westfalenliga - no mean feat given they were up against teams a year older than them. As for the U17s and the U19s, they made waves on a national level. The U17s dominated the league, going undefeated on their way to being named West German champions. They then swept aside VfL Wolfsburg 4-1 and 2-0 in the two semi-finals before suffering an unexpected but not undeserved 3-2 loss to 1. FC Cologne in the final of the German Championship. ''After a run of 23 wins and five draws, everything seemed to go against us in the final. A missed penalty, a shot off the woodwork, a goal-line clearance...'' bemoaned Springer. 

The U19s were disappointed to narrowly miss out on the regional title after an eventful league season, but their second-placed finish was nonetheless enough to secure qualification for the semi-finals of the German Championship, where they were drawn against arch-rivals FC Schalke 04. After a 2-2 away draw in the first-leg, the side led by captain Tobias Raschl triumphed 2-0 in the return fixture in front of a crowd of 7,000 at the Rote Erde Stadium. Their opponents in the final were a VfB Stuttgart side who just a week previously had been crowned winners of the U19 DFB Cup. The Black & Yellows trudged in at half-time 3-1 down on the scoreboard but were able to bounce back spectacularly in the second half to storm their way to a 5-3 win and in doing so secure BVB's eighth German Championship at U19 level. 

''Despite the U17s' defeat in the final, it was nonetheless an exceptional season for the club's highly successful youth department,'' said Springer, who evoked the club's ''six German Championships in the last five years,'', going on to add, to the applause of the room, that: ''Borussia Dortmund is unquestionably the number one destination for promising young talents at the moment.'' A total of 17 players between the U15 and U19 age groups are playing in the Germany youth teams. ''Over the course of the past season, the entire youth department was once again to find the balance between developing and promoting young talents while also putting out excellent teams that can compete at the highest level.'' 

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The Borussia Dortmund Women's handball team are also on course to win the title! ''We're currently top of the table and have managed to win every single one of our matches so far. When you talk to the players, you get a sense of just how much they want to win the championship,'' said Departmental Manager Andreas Heiermann as he addressed the Annual General Meeting. In the cup competition, the team needs just one more win to make it to the ''Final Four'' round. The handball department is also enjoying success at youth level. After the U17s' triumph in the German Championship last season, ''our U19s were able to lift the trophy this time round. With 12 Germany internationals in our ranks, it's safe to say that our youth programme is one of the very best in the country at this moment in time!'' said Heiermann, going on to conclude that: ''Our youth work has been greatly bolstered by the passion of our coaches and support staff. Our women's team have been wonderfully managed by head coach Andre Fuhr and are full of ambition and determination.''

Bernd Möllmann, the long-standing director of the club's table tennis department, was equally positive in his assessment. After leading the league over Christmas, the second-tier BVB side continued their good form into the new year. ''After four wins and a draw, there was talk of winning the title. Unfortunately, we just ran out of steam on the closing stretch.'' A second-place finish was nonetheless an impressive and widely-acknowledged achievement. In any case, a first-place finish would not have meant promotion to the Bundesliga due to the team's hall situation. The club's second-string side did however manage to make the jump up a division - from the Oberliga into the Regionalliga. Möllmann: ''The exceptional player in the division was our veteran master Wencheng Qi, who won 32 games and lost just four. Meanwhile, Kirill Fadeev finished as a runner-up in the German Youth Championship and the veterans' team once again won the West German Championship and finished second in the National Championship.''

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Jakob Scholz (wearing a jacket and a special edition Borussia unites jersey!) stepped up to the stage as the representative of the BVB Fan & Promotional Department. Scholz, the deputy chairman of the department, took the place of director Torsten Schild, who has taken leave of office since mid-November for private reasons. "We stand for club-political, fan-political and socio-political engagement,'' said Scholz, who was keen to emphasise the work the club does ''to combat right-wing extremism and all forms of discrimination.'' Scholz also gave an overview of the various activities the department is involved in and outlined the positive dialogue between the fan scene and the club. ''Over the course of the past year, we have once again been able to act as a point of contact for people who value the club, its influence in the city of Dortmund and its strong stance on various important socio-political issues. For Scholz, the topic ''most close to his heart,'' is the construction of the Fan and Youth House - "a meeting place for fans in the immediate vicinity of the stadium". The concept for the new Fan House is said to fit in well with the city's planned renovation of Strobelallee.

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Hasan Caglikalp took to the podium to discuss the club's integration sports, namely blind football and torball. "Our blind football team have just emerged from a period of upheaval. We're continuing to make progress, but we haven't yet reached our goal. We are working hard to achieve better results." A fourth place finish in the Bundesliga nevertheless represents an improvement on the previous year. There were cheers from the attendees upon mention of the ''2-0 victory in the Ruhr derby.'' The torball side are currently within touching distance of the top of the table, "and are doing everything they can to become German champions. As is so often the case, our female side is leading the way: they have already clinched the title," said Caglikalp, whose speech was greeted with long-lasting applause.

Boris Rupert