|
Double Visually Impaired
(VI) world champion Ben Quilter has sealed continental glory on
home soil after becoming the 2011 VI European Champion on Friday
at K2 Arena in Crawley.
The 30-year-old from
Brighton, who trains full-time at the British Judo Performance
Institute in Dartford, won four fights en route to his first VI
European title.
The -60kg standout opened
his tournament in scintillating fashion as he triumphed over Italian
Mirko Mingione in six seconds.
Ben followed up with
a rousing victory over Greek judoka Eleftherios Zervakis in 20
seconds.
Ben convincingly wins opening bout
The semi-final against
Ukraine's Serhill Kotenko provided a stern test for the London
2012 Paralympic Games hopeful as he was forced into golden score.
Ben rallied and immediately booked a place in the final with a
third successive ippon.
In the final Ben Quilter
faced Artem Merkulov of Russia and looked sharp early on as he
immediately pressured for a breakthrough. After opening the scoring
with a yuko Ben sealed victory by ippon and raised his arms in
jubilation to acknowledge the support of the home crowd.
Ben tops the medal rostrum at VI European Championships
"I’ve now won the
VI World Games, VI World Championships and VI European Championships;
I just need a Paralympic Games gold medal to complete my collection.
"I felt pressure
coming into the event, I had a lot of family and friends at the
venue to support me, and so I’m delighted to win and quite relieved
at the same time.”
Ben attributed his incredible
success to the highly-impressive Visually Impaired programme which
is led by Paralympic Performance Coach Jean-Paul Bell and Performance
Programme Manager Dave Sanders.
"The Visually Impaired
team is fully integrated at the British Judo Performance Institute
in Dartford where we train with fully sighted judoka of the highest
calibre. One of my main training partners for example is Colin
Oates who took bronze at the European Championships and a fifth-place
at the World Championships.
"We're now finalising
our schedule for next year with the focus firmly on the Paralympic
Games where I’m hoping to peak.”
Marc Powell, 22, saw
action in the -73kg category where he lost out to talented Ukranian
Dmytro Solovey.
The Liverpool judoka
returned to the competition in the repechage and despite narrowly
missing out on victory showed a great deal of promise as he fought
tenaciously against the continent’s top Visually Impaired judoka.
|