Postcards from The World Championships

The British Squad took time out of their busy preparation schedule to send us these pictures from Japan.

Here are some messages from BJA Performance Director, Udo Quellmalz and Performance Co-ordinator, Gary Anderson.

Good luck to the Team from all the BJA members and everyone at Head Office

10th September 2003

“The guys out here are doing great and in final phase of preparation…. a few nerves now! They are all working hard and can’t wait for competition to start. We had a good session today and everyone is really fired up”.

Graham Randall (Support Coach), Dave Gardner (Performance Analyst), Gary Anderson and Udo Quellmalz wave hello to everyone back home

Winston Gordon, Rachel Wilding and Craig Fallon train in the Japanese heat at the Osaka Baseball Park

11th September 2003

photo © Bob Willingham bob@twoj.org

“It is the first day of the competition and we wake up to cloudy skies and news

that a tropical storm is to the south east of Japan and moving towards the Osaka area!

It is still extremely humid and we are certain that our Conditioning Camp in Cyprus will prove worthwhile as the conditions are very alike. Certainly the player’s physiological reactions to the climate are what we expected, based on data gained in Cyprus”.

"We are delighted with Karinas bronze medal with an outstanding victory against a top class Cuban in her bronze medal fight. She won with an Ippon with just 30 seconds left on the clock…. talk about making us hold our breath!!

A good start from Great Britain. Looking forward to tomorrow”

Karina gets her medal

12th September 2003

"Today saw Karen, Winston, Euan and Kate competing. Although no medals were won, we saw some great fights from all four.

Kate put in a convincing performance during her first rounds, beating three of her four competitors by Ippon. It was devastating to see her get injured during the semi final against the Cuban, Regla Zulueta which forced her to concede in the last 12 seconds. Kate’s injury also left her unable to fight the German for the bronze medal, so she finished fifth.

We will update you once we have some more news on her injury. The great performance by Kate secured Great Britain's place in the category for Athens however, Winston narrowly missed his qualification position.

He won against Eduardo Costa of Argentina with an Ippon in the fourth minute, against Maxim Rakov of Kazakhstan and against Gerhard Dempf of Germany with an Ippon after 1 minute 22 seconds. However, he was defeated by Francesco Lepre of Italy to go out of the Championships.

The rest of the team are looking sharp for the next two days of competition.

We look forward to updating you soon."

Inside the stadium during warm-up today.

14th September 2003

“Sorry, we didn’t update you yesterday but we can now report that we have two more Olympic qualifications and two silver medal wins, which is an amazing achievement.

Yesterday, Georgina narrowly missed out on the Bronze medal when she faced Yuki Yokosawa of Japan.   It stayed equal for most of the fight, but Yokosawa caught Georgina in a hold down during a counter attack.    Its disappointing that she didn’t win the medal, which she deserved after such great performances in the tournament, but it is a great achievement to qualify the place for Great Britain.  

Even more great news today, with Craig and Karina winning silver medals.   Craig’s result means that we have qualified another Olympic place.   Their performances today were truly amazing…we are very proud of them both.

We travel home tomorrow having qualified four places for Athens and this is a good start towards our target.   We look forward to building on this through the European A Tournament season next year”.

Craig with his Silver Medal