Aussie Judo Players in Warm-up for World Championships
The Australian National judo team recently competed in two events in Miami,
Florida, as part of their preparation for this year’s World Championships to be held in Tokyo on 9-13 September 2010.
First up was a World Cup competition, which is a World Ranking tournament sponsored by the International Judo Federation. The competition attracted a world-class field from over forty countries, with many national teams also using the event to tune-up their athletes. Entries from pan-American countries dominated the event, but there were also many strong European athletes on hand.
The Aussie team had a good tournament, although they could only manage a
single bronze medal, going to Sydney’s Janelle Shepherd in the womens over 78kg category. Several other team members fought strongly to just miss out on medals – most notably our No1 male athlete Mark Anthony of Melbourne, who narrowly lost his 90kg bronze medal fight to a US fighter.
The team’s next outing was the USA Open, where the team had a strong result, taking a number of medals. Most impressive was Tasmanian Priscus Fogagnolo who took gold in the open category, beating Jake Andrewartha in an all Australian final. Jake had earlier taken bronze in the over 100kg category.
The team will take confidence from their performances in Miami as they head for the major event of the year in Tokyo. From Miami the team flies straight to Japan where they will round off their preparation with some hard training in the home of the sport. The World Championships begin on 9 September, and will be a major pointer to the London Olympic Games.
See http://www.ausjudo.com.au/jfa/images/managed/10/Judo%20Australia%20Media%20Release%20-%20Aussie%20Judo%20Players%20in%20Warm-up%20for%20World%20Championship%20100902.pdf
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