Report 10^th August 2003

Firstly, congratulations to all those who entered the London Open and fought very well resulting in our huge medal haul dominating the medals list. We had a huge contingent and great support which, makes all the difference to our fighters on the mat.

The day began for me at about 6:30am quick wash, no shave. Downstairs, straight in the kitchen, pasta from last night heated in the Microwave. Waited for Alan Coghlan to come round and give me a lift. Alan by the way is an old Budokwai Judoka who used to train during the time when Ray was young and Shihan Blewett had hair. In fact, Peter and Alan were good friends when training. He said he might return to the hallowed tatami. Also waited for Michael to turn up, he did and then we were off.

Got a little lost on the way there as I have done in the past. Found it eventually after some mandatory ribbing off the others in the jam-jar. Oh, do I need to mention the fact that the weather was scorcchio!!!!

We ventured inside Willesden sports centre and it was even more SCORCCHIO!!! We all met up; things were a little up beat, which, is always a good sign. Coach was in a good mood teasing us from the off. We all establish a Budokwai corner which some dared to infiltrate.

My first task was to find out whether Andy Pragnell had turned up and then to warn him tersely that if he had my drinks away again (see the Kent open report) he might find it hard to compete with no hands or feet. Yes, Sam’s Justice Saudi style….

We warmed up, so to speak, but we didn’t need to, just being inside the over-sized oven, called a sport centre, was enough. Budokwai ground support turned up en masse namely Peter Blewett, Andrea, Tony Sweeny, Danny Gillard, Sabev, and Costas, et al. We should have had more but it is understandable with the weather being as hot as it was. But nonetheless friends who play together stay together. The atmosphere was great: good Judo spirit but even better than that, good Budokwai spirit. We were all laughing and teasing each other, which increased our morale. Note: it was all agreed that the more support and the more competitors who came had a positive effect on the mood, it was like being back at the Budokwai.

Anyway, the day began with the juniors and Youths that is always good to watch; fantastic judo and great demonstration of skill. Nowhere is there a better display of judo spirit in its purest form than on the tatami where the young are competing. The most outstanding youth judoka of the event, and one to watch for in the future, was Jene Rene Badrick who fights for Willesden, London and is a member of the British squad. Awesome!!!

I was the first person to fight and so was Tim Slyfield and that coupled with the fact that we were both fighting –90’s meant that we were up against each other. It was like being back at the Kai. I just got stuck-in to the ex-Olympian I had a great time- all 30 seconds of it. Tim pulled off an Uchi-mata that, I must admit, he has caught me with before during training from the same Ko-soto-gari attack. I should’ve known better.

I won’t go into all the fights as I never saw all of them but I can say that all fought well, especially, Dmitri who walked away with the gold but not just that, I don’t think we saw him sweating at all. Tim also looked the business in the final, or sort of final, because we had a pool only. He completely dominated the silver medal winner with grips and made him look passive and scared. A good fight between Dante Montagnani and Danny Murphy, in the Veterans, resulted in a big O guruma win for Danny. It was the first fight that the whole Budokwai faithful went quiet including Coach. Danny picked up one gold and one silver, with Dante picked up silver. Both were smiling during the fight, which was good to see. Andy was fighting for his life during his fights; all of them seemed to be battles. Magic and Max both had hard battles not sure what happened but Bronze and silver respectively. Oliver fought well but no medals for the lightening blue belt this time. I didn’t see Ali’s fights but he didn’t look very happy at the end, nonetheless he got a Bronze medal. Mick Hollebrand fought well but didn’t win a fight. He came up against people who did look very seasoned. This may have been different if the referee had allowed a shimewaza to continue in his first on the red area, but he called matte instead.

We celebrated by taking lots of photos of the occasion and our shiny medals. Soon after we went home, or some of us straight down the pub for a ping-pong tiddley.

Only criticism of the day was that we don’t have a good still camera to take shots of the competitions, and even more urgent is that we don’t have someone volunteering to take them. We were scratching around for a camera to take photos. Luckily enough we had Dante’s throwaway camera, shameful. Can we sort that out please? A club digital camera would be a good idea (as suggested by Costas)!

Glad to announce that our dear Dr Diana Birch has returned from her holiday in the Caribbean. I hope she enjoyed the mild weather they had over there compared to our Middle Eastern summer. Welcome back Diana, please don’t forget the photos for the website, back to the grindstone! I know you missed the cut and thrust of London Politics at the Houses of Budokwai. * (webmaster's comment - I know people tend to think that any time in the Caribbean must be a holiday - but like it or not - this was work! How about coming with me next time and help out our deprived kids!)

Poor Natalie has re-injured herself by aggravating her cracked rib. She said the advice was that she should be out of the action for at least 6-9 months. Don’t worry Nat; no woman would replace you on our mat. Hurry up and get better sexy.

At the Budokwai we are having a drive to recruit more young, attractive, women to the club as it is agreed that there is definitely not enough young, attractive and available women, especially at the black belt renshu.

Anyway take care everyone hopefully see you on the mat…

SAYONARA SAM

RESULTS: LONDON OPEN

10 August 03

Seniors

Tim Slyfield –90Kg Gold

Dimitri Eriobuna –100Kg Gold

Danny Murphy +100 Silver

Max Rainczuk –73 Silver

Samuel Williams –90 Bronze

Andrew Pragnell –100 Bronze

Magic Kolowski –60 Bronze

Ali Sakhaiy –66 Bronze

Michael Hollebrand –81Bronze

Veterans

Danny Murphy +100 Gold

Dante Montagnani –90 Silver

German A tournament Results

IDEM Deutschland 2003

Budokwai fighters:

James Warren (-66kg) lost to Anis Lounifi (Tunisia) who went on to get third place. Bobby Rich (-90kg) went out in the first round to Hanno Villwock (GER). Nicola Dillon (-70kg) also crashed out in her first fight losing to Astrid Garmeier (GER). Simon Childs (-81kg) went out in the preliminaries to (GER) Martin Grassmuck. Winston Gordon (-90kg) won a silver medal, congrats to the big man.

Other British Fighters:

Darren Hawney (-90kg) didn’t make it out of the preliminary rounds losing to Philip Helm (GER). David Somerville won gold in the (-66kg) category. Tom Davis (-90kg) did quite well; he had three fights ultimately losing to Sven Helbing (GER), who is the British Open titleholder at the same weight. Kate Howey (-70kg) took silver. Georgina Singleton (-52kg) picks up yet another title achieving gold. Euan Burton came fifth in the (-81kg). Karina Bryant and Simone Callender take silver and gold respectively.

Well done to everyone.

Sam