The Midland Under 20 Championships

9 players in all competed From Ford Judo Club with some excellent performance's.
In this age banded competition see A and B band players fight on the Saturday, these would be under 12 and under 14 years of age.

Out of the 5 players, 4 took medals, they were Kelly Staddon fighting in the -44kg weight division Gold, DJ Irving -34kg Silver, James O'shea -46kg (A band) Bronze and Charlie Jackson -38kg (A band) the 5th player, Duncan Ward was placed at 7th winning 2 of his 4 fights.

A special mention for Charlie Jackson who put in a very mature performance, only just losing out to the current National Champion in his first fight, he then went on to win his next 4 to take the Bronze medal, a great performance, on his birthday too.

Sunday see the older players, C and D banders, under 17 and 20 year olds. Ford had 4 players fighting in this extremely hard competition, which see two medals taken and two 7th places. Matthew Kavanagh fighting in his new weight category started well beating the current National champion in golden score (extra time), an extremely exhausting fight for both players. Matthew won 3 of his 5 fights to gain the 7th place. Richard Jackson -50kg seemed a little under par on the day but still battled hard to try and pull back points that were awarded against him early in to the fights, Richard was Knocked out at the 7th place position but is determined to make amends in the forth coming event up at Liverpool.

Brandon Tutthill -46kg seemed to be on fine form, and looking very impressive, making easy work of his first 2 fights which got him to the semi finals, Brandon controlled the fight and took an early lead but a lack of concentration for a split second see the contest lost as Brandon was thrown for a 10 point score, a lesson learnt from that experience. Brandon then went on to win his next fight which gave him the Bronze medal position, on the whole, a very good performance.

Frankie Goulding-90kg, made light work of his first opponent but was feeling a little poorly, this was evident with his next fight against a lad he had never lost to before, Frankie, looked a little out of salts lacking any kind of speed in his judo, the loss knocked Frankie out of the semi finals and in to the Bronze medal position, again, not looking 100% Frankie still dug deep to produce a knockout throw to put him on the rostrum.

Arlon

Also, Chloe Jackson was fighting for Great Britain at Arlon, in Belgium. Chloe had a great performance fighting in the Junior Under 20 squad winning out of her pool in to the quarter finals where she met the Belgian National Champion. Although Chloe, 16, lost this fight it is her first competitive fighting since injuring her wrist in October. A great result for Chloe and again one of the GB squads better performers on the day in that category.

Bill...