Saturday 23 April 2011

Mions International, France






In April I went over to France for the Mions International. This is a very strong event with very large groups and is followed by a good training camp. I have done this competition for the last three years and we have stayed with Monique and Antoine at their house. There were 34 fighters in my group and it was my first event I had done at -42 kg.

Results sheet 2

I won five of my six fights and won the Bronze Medal. In the three years I have fought here I have won 1 silver and 2 bronze medals and the standard of fighter has been really good.




Saturday 9 April 2011

International Sparda-Cup, Duisberg, Germany








I travelled over to Germany for the International Sparda Cup in Duisberg. This was an event only for under 15 boys and there were over 300 entered. I had moved up again in weight to the under 40kg section and was in a group of 38. There were entrants from Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Belgium and Germany. The quality of the judoka was very very high and I would need to fight very well to get near a medal..

Vadim Shenk (Germany) First Fight
I did not get a good draw and my first fight was against one of the German favourites who had won a big event a couple of weeks earlier. I won with a yuko in Golden Score. Vadim won all his remaining five fights to win the bronze medal.

Darvin Just (Germany) Second Fight
My second fight was against a strong local fighter which I won with four yukos.

Yannic Zieke (Germany) Third Fight
Yannic is a tough fighter from Bayer Leverkusen and this was a very tough fight. I found it hard to score but kept up the attacks to win 3-0 on flags.

Tim Schwab (Germany) Fourth Fight
Tim was in good form as he beat the Belgium champion, Jorre Verstraeten, in the first round. I scored with a yuko and then an ippon right at the end of the fight.

Sylvain Cerny (Belgium) Semi-Final
I know this was not going to be an easy fight. Sylvain had beat Luis Haubold in 9 seconds the last fight. Louis had earlier beaten the Russian fighter Kirill Akimov who had won the Antwerp Open in January. This was the hardest fight of the day which went all the way and I was pleased to win with a yuko and reach the final.

Magnomed Musaev (Germany) Final
Magnomed Musaev was in great form winning his quarter and semi final fights in 7 & 13 seconds. His semi-final fight was against the Russian fighter, Vladislav Urvantsev. Scores were level at a yuko each when Magnomed caught me with a good uchi-mata throwing me for ippon

I was really pleased with the silver medal in an event with so many top fighters in one group.