The Brussels tournament is our third and final International competition  in our build up for the European Youth Olympic Festival in Paris and the European Cadet Championships in Azerbaijan.

We took a group of 30 Boys from the age group 1987/88 in the eight weight categories – leaving early Friday morning, travelling by coach and then train on the Channel Tunnel to Calais and then onto Brussels. The journey went really well, with no problems whatsoever – on our arrival at the hotel and the allocation of rooms all the boys were weighed, with everybody either on or very near their weight. 

After an early night and a 7:00am breakfast, we left for the venue, on our arrival we weigh-in and prepared for the event, with luck we should be finished by 2:00pm and on our way home to the UK.   

 All the boys fought well against some good opposition, there were good numbers of competitors in most of the weights, but unfortunately in the U90kgs & O90kgs,

there was a lack of players for Jayson Fairbairn, Adam Theaker & Luke Hughes – but they all fought well defeating the opposition there, taking – well earned Gold; Bronze & Gold Medals respectively.

The team took a further 4 Gold’s through – Chris Prince U50kgs – Chris Stewart U55kgs – Vince Skillcorn U66kgs and Chris Wallis U81kgs, with perhaps the best performance coming from Vince Skillcorn.

There were 22 players in the U66kgs, Vince fought hard all day with a series of good wins taking him into the final against Jonas Danckers – (a Belgium International – who he had fought in the recent Hannover training Camp), who like Vince had had a series of good results to get into the final.

From the beginning Vince took the match to Danckers, countering his Latt’s and Seionage techniques – with strong gripping and hard judo – dominating  his opponent for the duration of the contest eventually winning by a Shido for passivity .

 In the U60kgs, the rivalry between Marcus Bascombe and Adam Green continued – Marcus took a well earned Silver with Adam unfortunately having to pull out with a shoulder injury just before his Bronze medal fight.

Our two other Silvers went to Chris Turnbull U50kgs & Khalid Gehlan U55kgs.

All round the whole group whether taking medals or not performed well, demonstrating some skilful and technical judo, both standing and on the ground.

The many hours practising newaza drills showed – with some good Ippons from our boys

 On the whole it was a good event – generally the boys fought well, we had no serious injuries – just the usual lumps & bumps

The competition finished in good time, we were packed and on the bus for 2:00pm and on our way home, we caught the 17:09 train  for the Channel Tunnel and Dover.

Our thanks go to all the Squad Coach’s, the players who competed, their Coach’s and Parents who supported the Team in Brussels, finally may we wish all the best to the boys who are sitting their examination’s during the next few weeks.