Warwick Judo Compete at BUCS

On the last weekend of term two, Warwick Judo made the long journey to Sheffield to compete in the culminating event of our Judo calendar: The British University Championships held at the English Institute of Sport (EIS). This is a huge annual event which players have been gearing their training towards for months. We travelled up on the Friday night toweigh in for the individual competitions on Saturday, with Sunday being reserved for those fighting in the team events. Friday saw a very uncomfortable and sweaty journey, however, with the heating cranked on for those frantically trying to lose weight on the journey there –four kilos in a day is the new record! Amazingly, everyone weighed in at the right level and all were keen and ready to fight the next morning. Warwick took a group of 13 players down (RustamSethna, Adam Michaelis, Jack Griffiths, Antoine Rémond-Tiedrez, Jack Gray, Thomas Grandjean, Joe Rattenbury, John Thornby, David Ooi, Robbie Ripamonti, Phil Hartley, Sophie Cox and Sapphire Samiullah), and the final result left Warwick triumphant with four individual medals.

Saturday saw a number of excellent individual fights, everyone demonstrated high levels of determination and it was clear that all the hard work on techniques practiced in training really do pay off. The most exciting category of the day was the men’s U100kg category; four players out of the eight in the pool were from Warwick. This led to some tense rivalry as along with fighting opponents from other universities, contests were seen between ‘arch-enemies’ Robbie Ripamonti and Phil Hartley, David Ooi and Phil, and John Thornby and Robbie. After some close struggles, David secured the gold medal for Warwick having beaten Phil for the second time that day, Phil obtained silver after defeating his nemesis Robbie, and Robbie gained bronze after tapping out both his opponents with arm bars. Johnunfortunately did not medal, he was very unlucky as a narrowly called ‘matte’, stop, prevented him from winning one of his fights by submission to a rear naked choke. These results bode well for next year as the U100kg Warwick men completely dominated the category, taking out all other opposition.

There were a number of other extremely close and tense fights throughout the day, and our fourth Warwick medallist was no exception. Jack Gray was initially disappointed as after a long and hard fight for bronze he was told he had lost by half a point. However he was then called back to the mat by the judges asthe timer had gone on a minute too long, thus creating the need for a rematch for the medal as the point was only scored against him in the last minute! Jack collected himself and confidently stepped onto the mat to take up the challenge. Jack completely dominated his opponent, throwing him cleanly in the first minute of the rematch and securing him a well deserved bronze medal in the men’s U81kgs.

Whilst other competitors were unfortunately not to medal, many players demonstrated some fantastic skills on the mat. Joe Rattenbury amazed all as he showed off some great techniques in the U90kg category and overcame a number of extremely tough opponents. He faced the extra challenge of having to repeat his entire initial pool as the scores at the end of the first round were evenly matched, with each player having won by a complete point, or ‘ippon’. In the rematch, Joe was able to take down each opponent beaten previously as well as beating even those who he previously lost to, thus allowing him to advance through to the knockout rounds. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful in reaching the medalling stages, but a huge commendation must be given for his efforts.

Other great efforts were seen by RustamSethna, Antoine Rémond-Tiedrez, Jack Griffiths and Thomas Grandjean who all advanced through their initial pooling stages. Rustamfought extremely hard and was unlucky not to medal, making it all the way to the quarterfinals in what proved to be a very large and difficult pool. Recovering from a severe shoulder injury in the weeks leading up to BUCS, he showed great resilience and skill in defeating his opponents, only eventually being caught out in the very last stages of the competition, coming 7th overall. Antoine and Tom foughtin the two largest and most competitive groups of the competition, -73kg and -81kg Dan grade (brown belt and above) respectively. Both men faced some very experienced players, some of whom were on the Great British squad. Antoine unfortunately picked up a shoulder injury early on which hindered his overall performance but he still managed to pull off some stylish throws. Tom through his determination and skill both standing and on the ground managed to reach the recharge final but unfortunately after a long battle got caught out, placing him 7th overall. Jack Griffiths, a previous gold medallist at the Warwick Judo competition earlier this year, unluckily suffered his first ever defeat in competition, despite fighting extremely well throughout the day.

In the women’s categories Sapphire Samiullah and Sophie Cox both faced some very tough opposition. Sapphireunusually had her category merged with the one above as so few girls entered her weight group, resulting in a ‘best of three’ competition with a girl over 20 kilos heavier than her! Whilst trying her best and throwing her opponent initially with a foot sweep, unfortunately she waslater unable to escape a pin on the ground and lost her fight. Sophie was forced to fight a number of Great Britain squad team members, and whilst she advanced through the initial pooling stages demonstrating some expert skill, she unluckily was unable to make it through the final rounds and finished in 7th place.

After such tough competition in the day, our Warwick team indulged in a celebratory meal at Wagamamas and joined some friends from Coventry in the evening to celebrate. Those fighting in the teams the next day had to go for another early night in order to be ready for the morning; however some great team spirit was seen as all those who were not competing came to support in the morning and lend their encouragement. The men’s team was composed of Rustam, Antoine, Tom, Joe and David, although unfortunately Antoine was unable to participate due to his shoulder injury. This meant that the Warwick team was automatically one fight down when they stepped up to face their opposition. The men faced some extremely difficult competition in their pool as they were placed against eventual silver medal winners Loughborough, 5th place Bath andCambridge. Unfortunately, Warwick were unable to beat their opposition, although a number of notable performances were seen as the Warwick players proved extremely hard to beat despite the quality of the opposition.

The women’s team, composed of Sophie and Sapphire, was also a player down at the start and once more saw a tough first pool for the Warwick fighters as they faced eventual gold medallists Bath, as well as bronze medallists Birmingham and Nottingham. Warwick was again unfortunate in not making it through the initial stages, although Sophie put up some great resistance against her opponents, drawing against tough Bathopposition and winningher fight against Nottingham.

The whole weekend can be reported as a fantastic success for Warwick, with four medals being brought home from the individual competitions and some top notch performances from the whole team.Many congratulations go to the fighters and all the Warwick judoka should be very proud of their efforts.