After 6 months off the mat recovering from major surgery on his elbow, CJC’s Danny Williams -73kg is back on form. He travelled to San Salvador with team mates Nathon Burns and Matthew Clempner to the Pan American Open. He won 3 contests to progress into the semi-final including beating the highly ranked Ghanian Nartey. Here he met a Canadian fighter-current Pan American bronze medallist. It was a close contest but Danny was victorious and edged his way into the final against Van Tichelt. The fighter from Belgium was on a roll after winning gold at Miami Grand Prix and is a former European champion and world bronze medallist. The Belgian stopped the Camberley fighter’s comeback short of the gold medal this time. A silver medal and a solid performance is encouraging for Williams as he focuses on the Glasgow Commonwealth Games next year.
Next up from Camberley and clocking up an impressive amount of air miles so far this year was -66kg fighter Nathon Burns. After recent success in Bucharest and Tallinn World Cups, Nathon was on the hunt for another medal to add to his growing collection. He beat an Argentinian in his first contest but then lost to a Brazilian dropping into the repecharge. Dusting himself off Burns notched a win against an American fighter to move into the bronze medal match against a Belgium. Nathon narrowly lost and finished the tournament with a 5th place.
Finally it was CJC’s big lad, Matthew Clempner fighting in +100kg. He started well, winning his first match before being defeated by the eventual bronze medallist from Brazil. He had a second shot in the repecharge and again started positively winning another contest but he couldn’t get past the Romanian for bronze. Matthew joined team mate Nathon in picking up the 5th place.
