DJC @ The British Championships
Sunday the first of October saw six of Drake Judo Clubs Generation One players head to Cardiff for the National Championships (for 10 and 11 year olds)
Most of the players had gone up the day prior so that they could get a good nights sleep and not be stressed in getting to the venue late, sadly due to the Cardiff Half marathon this made traffic very bad and Ross who had driven from Plymouth that morning ended up arriving before most of the juniors!
There were 4 mats and our boys were called first, Jake, Reuben and Bogdan
Jake was in the largest group of the day (16 players) which was broken down into pools, followed by Knockout, Jake did very well narrowly losing to the eventual gold medallist and bronze medallist, in his third contest he was taken down early and held down for 16 seconds(20 and the contest is over) he managed to reverse the hold and hold his opponent down for Ippon, a top 10 finish and perhaps the performance of the day
Reuben sadly did not have a lot of luck, he was 2 wazaris up in his first contest(enough to win under old rules) but was sadly disqualified after some gamesmanship from his opponent, he sadly injured his arm during this contest and this affected him in his next matches, he finished in 5th place, very respectable and 100% effort given
Bogdan was in a group very very evenly matched and was very unlucky to lose his first contest after being a wazari up and almost winning on the ground, after battling through the next contests he finished in a contest for Bronze which he won on the ground, a good reward
After the briefest of break whilst we watched some nage-no-kata it was time for the girls Lottie, Alanna and Lucy
1st up was Lottie in a very very competitive group with 10 other girls, all of her contests were extremely tight and this first step into national level proved to be a very educational experience, a stark difference between this version of Charlotte and one 6 months ago - Bravo
Next up was Alanna who was fighting in U52's for the first time and being at the bottom of the weight presented issues which she has not been used to, however she gave her usual 'Alanna' type performance which has seen her medal at every single competition she has entered this year and she came away with a bronze medal
Lucy was the surprise of the day as she had not intended to compete until only some 6 weeks ago and she competed very hard and won her bronze medal fight with a big Ippon throw! - massive well done to Luce
TJ from Truro was with us on the day and got stuck in and came away with a big bronze medal for her efforts, smiled throughout even though she sustained a shoulder injury
This was a big step up for our Gen1 players as they head now into the next phase of their competitive Judo careers, 3 medals and 6 excellent performances!
Massive thank you to Charles, Ross and Ros for mat-side coaching on the day