Dusseldorf German Grand Prix- 18th & 19th February 2012
Karina Bryant ranked 14 in the World faced American Nina Cutro-Kelly first fight in this Grand Prix event. Bryant confidently started the day throwing for ippon with a lovely uchi mata and moved in to the second round against higher ranked Mexican Zambotti. Karina continued her winning streak beating Zambotti after some dubious referees decisions in golden score to get into the quarter final against Polavder from Slovenia. A long term rival and difficult opponent tactically to fight for tall Bryant, it was going to be a challenging contest. Karina lost on a 5 point score and Polavder went on to win the Gold that day and Bryant had to settle for 5th place.
Surrey Millennium League Round 1 Red & Yellow Belts- 19th February 2012
Nine Camberley Juniors made the trip to Redhill, for the first round of the Surrey Millennium League, returning with nine medals, four Golds, two Silvers and three Bronzes.
First up was the sole female judoka Pheonix Govey-Gray. Pheonix was the only entrant in her weight (under 36Kgs) and so fought a girl from the weight group above and made light work of her scoring an early Yuko and then an impressive Ippon throw to take the Gold medal.
In the boys, Jack Baxter won Gold by default in the U24 Red Belt boys as he was also the only entrant in this category. However the organisers put him in with the yellow belt U27kgs and he fought well to win one of the two fights he had against bigger and more experienced opponents.
In the U34kg Red Belts (the largest group of the day) Louie Baylis fought superbly winning his first three fights by Ippon and narrowly losing in the semi-final having been a Wazari up and 1 second away from a second Wazari with a hold down, when his opponent escaped. He was caught with an Ippon throw late in the fight by an opponent who to his credit never gave up.
The U38Kgs Red Belts saw Joseph Mitchell take to the mat. Joseph was younger and smaller than the other boys in this group and narrowly lost his opener in a hard fought battle with the eventual gold medalist. Undeterred, Joseph went on to win his next two fights with impressive Ippon throws, the first of which was a spectacular O-GOSHI and without doubt the throw of the day. The silver medal was just reward for his efforts.
Making their competitive debuts for Camberley were novice fighters Mikey Haclin, and brothers Piotr and Dom Plaskota. Mikey and Piotr fought each others for the spoils in the U60 Red belts and a hard fought contest saw Piotr catching Mikey with a good Osoto-Gari late in the fight to take Gold. Both went on to give fighters from the weight categories above a good run for their money with Mikey losing in Golden score to an + 66kg fighter and Piotr gaining another impressive win. Dom was in a round robin pool of 5 in the U50Kg Red belts and showed great promise by winning two of his four fights with Ippon throws and made a good account of himself in the other two fights against opponents who were vastly more experienced than him.
In the Yellow Belt boys Tom Kirk was representing Camberley at U30kgs and won all of his three fights by maximum score to take Gold and add to his impressive medal tally. T.K. demonstrated excellent all –round Judo scoring with two Ippon throws and a hold down. His second Ippon throw was a lovely Harai-Goshi which even he seemed pleased with! Luke Smith, who usually fights along side T.K. at U30kgs, narrowly missed the weight and found himself up against it, in the U34kgs Yellow Belt category. Despite a positive attitude, and staying true to his attacking style, he was beaten by two much larger boys but his efforts nonetheless brought him a deserved Bronze medal.
All the Junior Judokas showed great promise and were a credit to their club. They can all be very proud of their achievements.
