Ahead of the Junior World Championships and other International Judo Federation world tour events, British Judo athletes from across all of the spectrums are getting ready to attend a training camp in Brazil between 8 and 20 October, writes Donna Richardson.

London 2012 Olympians and Commonwealth medallists Ashley McKenzie (-60kg), Colin Oates and Sally Conway will be testing out the facilities ahead of Rio as well as preparing for future IJF world tour events for which they have been selected.

With the Rio Olympic qualification period now officially open, the emphasis for judoka hoping to be selected to represent Great Britain is to gather as many world ranking points as possible and no doubt being at the home of the next Games will be vital in getting into the winning mindset.

London 2012 Olympic and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth silver medallist Gemma Gibbons joins her team-mates as she continues on the road to recovery.

Women’s lead coach Kate Howey said: “The camp will be good because the players involved will get access to a style of fighting that they don’t normally get. In terms of the Rio Olympics it is good to go to Belo Horizonte and find out from a strategic point what the holding camp will be like and the facilities. The players have an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the climate and the facilities in offer for the holding camp, so it’s not all new come 2016.”

These household names will also be joined by the young Junior World Team who will compete in Fort Lauderdale in the USA on 22 to 26 October.

For many of them their long-term goal is aiming for Tokyo 2020, based full time at the British Judo the Centre of Excellence in Walsall, it will be the a chance of a lifetime to train at Belo Horizonte’, the place where the future Great Britain Olympic squad will be based ahead of Rio 2016.

Recent European Junior World Champion at +78kg Jodie Myers will have expectations on her after her recent result. She trains full time at the British Judo Centre of Excellence.

Some of the other girls preparing for the Junior World’s include Commonweath champion Jemima Yeats-Brown (-63kg) joined by Lucy Renshall at the same weight plus Ebony Drysdale-Daley and Jemima Duxberry (both -70kg).

Under 60kg double cadet championship bronze medallist Neil MacDonald (-60kg) also joins Sam Hall (-60kg) and George Smith (-90kg) in action at the camp.

Meanwhile the Visually Impaired Squad will also be looking to get in some training as the potential Paralympic team sets themselves on the road to Rio.

2014 Senior World VI bronze medallist at -81kg Jono Drane is looking forward to the event – his first since winning his world medal.

He will be joined by 2013 Junior World VI Champion Chris Skelley (-100kg) and Gavin Towers.

Two time Paralympian (silver and bronze medallist) Sam Ingram (-90kg) will also be back in training following a minor injury that prevented him competing at the Senior VI Worlds, an event of which he is a former champion.

The training programme will be quite intense for the team, with randori sessions, strength and conditioning, speed and agility, regeneration, technical and prehabilitation all on the menu for the senior and visually impaired teams.

The Junior World Team will be following a similar programme as they finish off a training programme spearheaded by Jamie Johnson to prepare them for the Junior World Championships.

Words by Donna Richardson.