Simon Ward reports on his club's trip to the 2011 Gloucester Open

Three Year Six pupils from Kingsley School made a successfully trip to Newent, for this years Gloucestershire County Open Championships.

The event was attended by just over 100 junior boys and girls from the age of 8 to 15 years old from many clubs within the Western Area, Wales, Midlands and Berkshire. The tournament was split into two age categories under 12 and under 16 years old.

The competition was very strong with many budding judoka competing for the medals.

The younger Kingsley Team are still relatively still new to events and we used this one to test out how well their training has been coming along.

Louis Hughes Year 6 produced some good throwing techniques as he won a silver medal in the under 50kg class. Louis was very comfortable in waiting for a chance to Throw his opponent and then look for a chance to win the contest with a hold down technique in ground work. Louis is developing well as a judo fighter as he’s gaining more confidence all the time. Louis won three fights by ippon and only lost his final fight for gold after a slight mistake which allowed his opponent to throw him for ippon.

Finlay Mathers Year 6 fought in the under 34kg class he allowed the nerves to get the better of him in his first fight. This meant he lost his opening bout, but came back with a new determination in his next bout. Finlay produced a good 7 point throw with tai-otsohi. But as the fight continued his opponent managed to level the scores and win the fight, it was a great shame as Finlay had produced most of the strong attacking style throughout the contest. Finlays last fight was much better as he put his two disappointments behind him and won this last fight by ippon. It left Finlay in fifth-place and just missed out on a bronze medal.

Nick Bone Year 6 was taking part in his first ever event in the under 38 kg class. Nick has an excellent attitude in training, and will I’m sure with some more practice will produce some fantastic judo. Nick lost his three bouts in the competition, but within each contest Nick improved and was able to build on each fights experience as he tried harder in each fight to better his last battle. Nick fought very bravely in his first competition and will certainly get better and strong from this experience.

I'm really proud off the three boys, each one off them tried their best and that’s all you can ask for, I can tell they wanted to win and produced some good Judo. Competition is so different to club fighting the whole arena can be so demanding on the competitor. Our Team fought well and won some fights so I’m so happy for them.

Kingsley Judo Club is an open club to the local community for those who would like to try out Judo for Free please call the school – 01237 426200