Monday 31 January 2011

Midland Under 20's




After three hard events in France, The Netherlands and Belgium I was back to fighting at home. I was pleased with the way I fought at the Midlands and this will be one of my last comps at under 38's. I felt very strong and won all my fights beating Cameron Ishmail in the final.

Francis Millward (Sportif) First Fight
I threw Francis with Kata-Guruma

Callum McDonald (Sportif) Second Fight
Callum is a top fighter and is the under 34 British Champion. I threw Callum for a yuko and controlled the fight well. Callum had to attach and I caught him for ippon with one second left.

Cameron Ishmail (Gendros) Final
We have fought many times and the fights are always tough. I scored a yuko early on and kept in control.

Link to Results


Antwerp Open 2011, Belgium



Antwerp is always a hard competition and I did not start well losing my first fight to Giles Bonnema of the Netherlands. Giles had to get to the semi-final so I could get into the Repecharge. This was never going to happen so I was one and out again at this competition. The group was won by Kirill Akimov from Russia who I will be up against in Duisberg and Erfurt this year.

Saturday 15 January 2011


Last weekend was the Dutch Espoir in Eindhoven. This is a very big competition and there were 59 in my group. In my quarter of the draw was Mohamed Kochich (German Favourite), Jeffrey van der Vleit (2009 Champion) and Jorre Verstraten (Belgium No1). This was going to be very tough.

I fought well winning my first two fights against strong Dutch fighters. My third fight was against the strong German. I fought well and managed to make a good fight. Mohamed attacks at every chance and always comes forward at you. It was a good result to only lose the fight on flags.

I then had to fight Jorre Verstaratten in the repercharge. Jorre was on great form. After beating me he went on to win a Bronze Medal with all ippons. Most of the same fighters will be in Antwerp next weekend for the Antwerp Open.

Monday 3 January 2011

Christmas Training Camps

This Christmas I was picking my training up in preparation for the Dutch Espoir and Antwerp open in January, as well as the Midlands and North West ranking events. For four days before Christmas I went down to the Tonbridge International camp in Kent and there were more than 350 players on the mat. I went with Connor Potts and Liam Tarandij. We only just made the camp because of the snow. The Tonbridge camp was really strong as some top Dutch fighters came over (Jeffrey van der Vliet, Matthijs van Harten and Ziggy van den Brink ). All three top Dutch fighters and the Randori was very tough.

After Christmas I went over to Rotterdam for the Budokan Camp where there were nearly 500 judo fighters there over the three days. Like the Tonbridge camp it was only Randori and for most of the sessions we had to do 10x4 minute randori without any rest between fights. This was a very strong camp and very tiring.

I will now have a week or so rest before a very tough January.