Uni Judo at the 2019 National Championships

Over the weekend, Uni Judo had 12 members participating in the 2019 New Zealand Judo Championships. We had one of our more successful Nationals campaigns with nearly every participant scoring a medal across multiple categories.

Saturday morning began with a grading for occasional coach Quentin. He was awarded his 2nd dan following his katame no kata performance with Ben. He revealed afterwards that he had been a shodan for 15 years so clearly this was a long time coming.

Then the actual fighting began, kicking off with the Veterans divisions, with the following results: 

• Our resident Russian Bear and 2 time IJF Veterans Medallist Vitaly won both the Veterans 50-59 year old 90+kg division and the Open, fighting through shoulder and wrist injuries which he said has left him "weak" (at least by his standards). 
• Ray won a gold in the 60+ year old U73kg division. 
• Stu won gold in the 40-49 year old U90kg category and the Open. 
• Fabio also medalled in the 40-49 year old bracket with a bronze in the U73kg division. 
• Quentin, following his morning grading, also scored a silver in the 30-39 year old U73kg division.

As the divisions got younger, we scored a three more medals. 

• Phoebe managed to medal twice, with a bronze in the Junior Women's U52kg category and a silver in the Senior Women's U52kg category, beating a black belt in her first fight in the senior division. 
• Kane scored himself a bronze in the Senior Men's U90kg division.
• Quentin scored a bronze in the Senior Men's U66kg division along with Antoine who, while not actually being part of our club, has been training with us for most of the year due to university study.

We followed the successful first day with dinner at El Mexicano Zapata, joined by other friends of the club, though our cadets and kids had to watch what they ate in order to make weight on the Sunday. 

Sunday began with the kata competition, with three University members entered.

• Ben and Quentin improved by over 30 points from their previous attempt at competition kata, with a silver medal in katame no kata.
• Stu won a gold medal in goshin jutsu.

In the kids divisions:

• Aly, in his first Nationals competition with University, won a bronze medal in the Senior Boys U66kg category.

And to close off Nationals, Phoebe scored yet another medal for the collection with a silver in the Cadet Women's U52 category. Special mention to be made of the coach's son Zack, who also scored himself a nationals medal, winning silver in the Cadet Men's U66kg category.

Congratulations to all our competitors!