Three members of the elite team-Andrew Panayi, James Martin and Reece Howard travelled to Denmark for the Matsumae Cup tournament last weekend. This well-established tournament is always attended by a strong international contingent, boasting competitors from Japan, Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
Both Andrew and James were in a tough -66kg category boasting two strong Japanese fighters. Andrew beat the first Japanese fighter in round one in golden score and won again against a Dutch fighter to reach the semi final. Here he lost a close match against another strong fighter from Holland. James was drawn against the other Japanese fighter first match but lost narrowly on a shido. He racked up two ippon wins against Swedish and Dutch judoka to put himself in the bronze medal contest-unfortunately against his club mate. For team mates that train together several times day this is always a tough scenario. This time Andrew was victorious-a shido earning him the bronze and James a respectable 5th place. Relatively inexperienced on the international circuit in -60kg was Reece Howard. He had 3 tough pool matches and hopefully gained some valuable exposure at this level of event.
All three men stayed for the international training camp which included the Japanese athletes from Tokai and Budo Universities. A big CJC thank you to our Danish friends from Velje judo club for part funding the tournament and camp for our athletes.
