Alister's report from New Zealand

26 June 2005

First stop on the programme, Jeju Island, Korea. 14th Pacific Rim Judo Championships. I arrived on Jeju Island (apparently the Hawaii of Korea) a few days early. I had no problems getting use to the heat and humidity. Competition day came along, which started off with weighing in. A couple of hours later, I was on the mat warming up for my first round fight against Bagher Tooti of Iran. It was a long wait leading up to the fight, then it was time. My opponent proved to be strong. About 1 minute into the fight, due to my lack of defence, he got in quick with Te-guruma (pick up throw) and threw me for ippon. The Iranian went through the draw and was the eventual silver medallist, losing to Japan. I ended up getting a repechage, which means another chance to come through to fight for bronze.
The fight was against Chueh-Chen Lin of Chinese Taipei; I was battling it out trying to get my grips. About 3 minutes into the fight I got thrown for ippon with Uchimata. My reactions to techniques were too slow. I could not proceed through the repechage, so the day was now over for me. I was a little disappointed with the result of the tournament. However I did the best preparation I could, coming from New Zealand and I tried my best under the circumstances. It’s just some more experience for me and another small stepping stone. After the tournament there was a judo function at the official hotel for officials, competitors, coaches and referees. We all pigged out on the Korean food that was offered, which was bad but well deserved for all the long weeks spent on dieting.

17 July 2005

I am now currently based in Holland, staying at Sportcentrum Jan De Rooys. Jan De Rooy is one of the Dutch national coaches and has some of the top Judo players training at his place including Deborah Gravenstijn, bronze medallist at 2004 Athens Olympics and Elisabeth Willeboordse, gold medallist at the 2005 European Championships. I have just arrived back in Holland from a training camp in France. It was held at INSEP, Paris (French training centre), and lasted for 6 days. The training schedule consisted of two, two hour judo sessions a day, just fighting against some of the best judokas in the world. Some of the participating countries included: France, Japan, Great Britain, Iran, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, Qatar, Brazil, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, USA and a few others. By the end of the camp my body was almost dead. My defence and reacting to techniques has already improved a bit. Although the training was hard, I enjoyed it a lot. Apart from all the judo training I managed to do some sight seeing.

30 July 2005

Just got back from another heavy training camp in Holland. The International Dutch training camp is normally held at Papendal (Olympic Dutch training centre), but because of the dates and expenses the Dutch Judo Bond decided to have it in a town called Leusden this year.
The camp was basically similar to Paris. Most of the countries from Paris participated at this camp so I saw a lot of familiar Judo faces. The camp lasted for 5 days and consisted of two 2hr training sessions per day. This time I got to have a few fights with the likes of Craig Fallon and Ludwig Paischer, who are both famous on the world Judo stage in my weight category.
As usual the training was hard but I really enjoyed it, and I am now starting to be able to hold my own against some of the guys I am fighting now.

15 August 2005

On 6th of August I competed in the German Judo Open held in Braunschweig, a small city halfway in between Berlin and Hannover. It was a bit of a mission getting there, taking 5 and a half hours by train plus an extra 2 hours trying to accredit myself for the competition (that’s what coaches and mangers are for). I also got the chance to catch up with some other fellow New Zealanders who are also travelling and training in Europe. They were also competing in the tournament over the weekend. Ryan Dill-Russel under 90kg, David Dill-Russel under 81kg, Joy Williams under 70kg and Kura Smith under 63kg.

Anyway competition day kicked off at 6.30am with the unofficial weigh-in and 7.30am official weigh-in. The first fight of the day was actually weighing in, because it was ‘random’ weigh in, which means first in first served ? out of about 4 weight divisions (130-140 competitors).
So I arrived at 7.30am for the official weigh-in and there was already a huge group of people waiting. I went around the back and slowly wriggled and pushed myself to the front. It only took me about 10mins to get weighed in, which I was stoked about. Straight after that I got some good competition food into me for energy, a jam sandwich, bananas plus a naughty snickers bar. Again well deserved for the past few weeks dieting. Competition started at 9.30am, so I warmed up with one of the guys from Sport school Jan De Rooys and then waited to be called up. I had a total of 37 competitors in my weight division from various countries.
Anyway fight time came; my first was against Marcus Richter of Germany. The fight started off good, I was dominating and controlling the grips well. About 40 seconds I got penalised, don’t know what for ? so the German was now up by a Koka (small point). I was still controlling the grips and attacking, I went in for a one-handed uchimata (both hands on one side), and lifted him off the ground but he managed to twist out and land on his stomach. If I had a sleeve grip I think he would of landed on his back and gone for ippon. I also got a few ‘rolling strangle’ attempts, but were stopped by the ref because of the lapel being on the chin. About 3 mins, we were both starting to get tired a bit, I went in for another uchimata attack and got countered, I actually threw myself for ippon. I was disappointed about this, however that’s judo. The person that makes the least mistakes wins. At this point of the fight I should have stopped attacking and settled a bit, but at the time I didn’t know what to do, mainly lack of competition experience. The German went on to the second round but lost to Siarhei Novikau of Belarus. So I didn’t get a second chance in the repechage.
That evening I had a few drinks with the New Zealanders and then we took part in another training camp the following week after the tournament, which was 4 days long.