Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Australian Judo Nationals.



This was a strange contest most of the top ranked players were knocked out of the Gold medal chances early making the points ladder very interesting for future selection events now. Meaning it’s a cut throat on events to win.

This now means due to different players winning places at the Nationals other then the top placed players, the next 5 events will be a cut throat do or die contest as we will all be trying to place at the coming SYD & VIC internationals and the Oceania world cup (WA) will be the main one to win. I am happy with the over all result and placing of other players I did train very hard for this event only to be out done by the better player on the day. I will have to work even harder to retain my position again.

Ok the Australian Judo Nationals which were run from Saturday to Monday were successful, Players in my division were (Athens Olympian and current national champion) Martian Kelly nsw, Craig Gresham qld, Jamahi Kelly tas, Thomas Howe nsw, Cahai Burne vic, Brett Allan qld, Charles Kobelke WA, Matt cellotti vic, John Brendecke qld, and me NSW.

All the weights were between 97kgs & 99.900 kgs all very close with 10 players in the u/100kgs division. The first fight was M. Kelly NSW, he gained a buy for his first match. Then moved to 2nd round, 2nd match was qld C. Gresham & J. Kelly tas, Kelly won using leg grabs and moved to the 2nd round. 3rd match was B. Allan qld and C. kobelke WA Kobelke won in a few seconds to move into the 2nd round. M. Cellotti gained a bye and moved into 2nd round to face Kobelke and beating him, forcing Kobelke to drop to the bottom of the ladder

My first fight was a bye and moved to 2nd round to face J. Brendecke (who recently won against me at the Arafura games) so this win was vital the match went the full 5minutes with me sweeping Johns foot to score a yuko 7pts ahead forcing John to obtain a penalty to give me another 5pts and wining the match to move into the semi finals to face M. Cellotti.

The first semi was against M. Kelly whom won easy to move to the finals. The 2nd semi was a must win for me against M.Cellotti ( previous champion also) we had not competed against each other since 2001. Our initial grip fighting was hard at the start when I was watching to counter his top grip when Matt dropped down to take out my left leg to throw me with the throw that would place me in the bronze match. The bad thing was I seen it coming and didn’t react in time. Mat was now facing Martian in the finals.

J. Kelly had moved up to the repo charge winning against Tom Howe, now to fight against me in the finals to for the bronze medal. Our match was the first time we had ever competed against each other, Jamahi was a very strong unorthodox player and caught me early in the match forcing me to play catch up, which led to a mistake giving him the final throw to win against me to finish with the Bronze. The other Bronze match saw J. Brendeke cause an upset to clean up the top of the ladder leader C.Kobelke with a counter throw in the dying seconds to move on to fight against C. Byrne beat him easy to claim equal 3rd.

The Gold medal match against current national champion Martian Kelly and Mat Cellotti, Cellotti went straight into drive mode to score two fast points against Martian, and the wearing him down to reduces his chances of coming back with a score to win and take the title from Martian.

The placing are Matt Cellotti (VIC)1st place, Martian Kelly (NSW) 2nd Place, Jamahi Kelly (TAS) 3rd place, John Brendeke (QLD) equal 3rd place. Mick Cutajar (NSW) 4th place, Cahal Byrne (VIC) 5th place, Tom Howe (NSW) 6th place and Charles Kobelke (WA) 7th place.