DJC @ The Kent International Championships

The Kent International is a high level International competition held at the Medway Sports Centre in Gillingham. The event itself attracts over 1000 competitors from around the world. A spectacular multi level tournament.

I have attended the event personally many times over the last 12 years or so, the competition always attracts extremely high quality Judo players, i n the entire time i attended over the first 10 years i only ever saw one player from Plymouth take a medal(Go Cordy!)

And so last year was DJC's first foray to the Kents with some great performances by our players culminating with Alanna becoming Kent International Champion(Go Alanna!)

This year it was the turn of Phoebe and Olivia to take up the challenge, both travelled up on Friday afternoon and stayed overnight,

I decided to do my usual 'up and back in a day' trick, although this time that meant leaving just after 2.30am and reaching the venue at 6.50am!

In and weighed inn oth girls were called up to mat 2 and 3 respectively and I was made to jump between the two mats, both girls were in groups of 8 split into 2 pools,

Pheebs was up first, winning both her fights in very convincing fashion, her first against a strong player who Phoebe held down with some great adaptation to keep the full osekomi on for 20 seconds.

Her next contest was against a girl from Kingsley School whom Phoebe knows well, this contest finished after Phoebe scored two wazari throws to reach the full score of ippon

This put Phoebe into a semi final where if I'm honest she suffered due to refereeing mistakes, her opponent was awarded a wazari even though Phoebe clearly landed on her front, Phoebe then threw for a clear wazari but this was denied, she then threw again for Wazari again this time it being scored and finally f she fell over with her opponent being awarded the contest!!, needless to say i appealed very vigorously(bit too much maybe) and asked the senior referee to review the CARE system, i was told the decision was correct, I still stand by my opinion but as we know you win some and you lose some in Judo (its just a shame you lose some after driving for 7 hours!)

A well deserved Bronze for Pheebs and another international medal for DJC

Liv was up at the same time and i was running between mats, She weighed at 58kgs and so was put into the U63kgs which meant she was giving away a huge amount of weight and a huge amount of age with some of her competitors being in Year 11 at school! (Liv is year 7!!) The first girl she fought was MASSIVE (picture me with a pony tail and you're there!) Liv battled hard and scored a Wazari followed up with a solid hold for Ippon,

Another contest and then into the semi finals against a 15 year old Goliath, Liv went on the attack and tried her best but was not big or strong enough to match her opponent, she was thrown for Wazari and placed in a solid hold down but she escaped, which was especially pleasing to see!

Liv finished with a very well deserved Bronze Medal and the 2nd International Medal of the day for DJC.

Heading home, a wrong turn saw us driving through the centre of the city of London taking in the sights which included the O2 arena, The Palace of Westminster, The Thames, the London Eye and Tower Bridge, we also saw the Red Arrows flying by in formation!

Not a bad day in all

Ross

Ross