British Judo held its English Open at iceSheffield on Sunday 9 March and the event saw British squad members and former players being pushed by some of the nation’s best up and coming judoka.

Lucy Renshall (Warrington Warjukwai) and Emma Reid of Redbridge did the double to become both -63kg and -70kg junior and senior champions respectively and set the precedent for a number of other juniors to repeat the feat on the same weekend of the British Schools Championships.

Seventeen year-old Jodie Caller, after winning the junior women’s under 57kg title, claimed silver after a defeat in the final against 32-year-old Olympian Sophie Cox (-57kg) who had returned to the mat after a spell away from competition.

Cox was the overall winner of the -57kg senior title. “You look at the juniors here today and they are really pushing us,” said Cox.

“Jodie did fantastic to take the junior title and also gain silver at senior level, its good to see British Judo investing a lot of money in development of the youngsters; it is a journey and Jodie reminds me of myself at her age.

“For me I am here just to keep my hand in and keep fit and as I am doing it for fun, I don’t feel any pressure to perform. I’m focusing more on coaching but I do feel I have enough left in me to keep on doing judo.”

The under 57kg bronzes at senior level went to Tara Fitzjohn and Julia Scardone.

At junior level Caller beat Bekky Livesey, while bronzes went to Jessica Carl and Malin Wilson.

JudoScotland’s Valentino Volante (+100kg) followed suit to seize the junior gold from Joshua Burns and went on to win the senior silver medal against Zviad Tsiklauri, a Georgian who fights for the Midland’s area who hold’s last year’s title.

“I feel really happy with my results today as this is my first English Open,” said Valentino.

“I am delighted to win the juniors and even happier to get a silver at seniors too.

“I’ve been training hard for this in Scotland at Ratho with Judo Scotland under my coach Matt Purssey.”

Identical twins William and Tom Johnson of Yoshin Ryu fought in the finals of the -66kg and -73kg categories, respectively at junior level with both contests decided almost simultaneously by yuko scores.

As Will took the under -73kg gold beating Jamie Caller, his brother Tom had to settle for the -66kg silver against Eric Ham – the gold medallist. In the same category was Luke Balfre amd Adam Adaman who took bronze.

However, there was disappointment for Sam Hall who returned to his home city hoping to conquer the -60kg category but equalled his bronze of last year in his last year as a junior. In the -60kg junior pool semi-final Hall was disqualified for hansoku-make (four penalties) in a match against Daniel Powell who eventually went on to win the gold medal. Isaac Gagin took silver while the other bronze went to David Ferguson.

Jodie Myers (+78kg) of S.K.K took junior gold and senior bronze, while Ebony Drysdale-Daley took a silver and a bronze and Hakirat Sekhon of Ealing took bronze in each category. 

Other junior golds included: for the men Joe Young (-66kg) of Ryecroft, Nikita Volosins of (-81kg) Durham University, George Smith (-90kg) of Huddersfield.and for the women Freya Harrild of Parkwood took the under 48kg junior women’s title, Natasha Fraser (-52kg) of The Parks, Charlotte Newbold (-78kg) of Redbridge.

For the seniors, Ashley McKenzie returned from injury and was a surprise entry in the -66kg category.

He took the English title as Joshua Hill got silver. In the same category, Aaron Turner and Kyle Davies took bronze.

The Awiti-Alcaraz siblings were also in force. Philip took the -100kg title while his sister Prisca Awiti of Enfield stepped up from cadet level to secure junior and senior silver in her first English Open coming second to Lucy Renshall at -63kg. Elsewhere in Philip’s category, Adam Hall took silver and Connor Murphy and Ruslan Rancev took the bronze. Chris Skelley, a visually impaired judoka of Haltemprice in Hull also took fifth place at his first English Open.

Philip Awiti-Alcaraz said: “I feel that I performed well and beat some key players and it was a good result for me. I am pleased for my sister too to take silver and my brother for competing and he did well as he is just starting out. ”

Another senior highlight included Peter Vincent coming back from injury to win the -100kg men’s category, beating his GB rival Charles Grocock from Huddersfield in the final. “I am very pleased with the English Open win having missed the competition last year with injury and it was the only under 21 domestic title that I had not won so it is a special one for me.

“I lost to Charles in one of my comeback competitions after my hip surgery last year in a very close fight and it was great to get my revenge in another close fight this time.”

Meanwhile, Caroline Kinnane from Redokan successfully defended her -78kg senior title and heavyweight Ashley Fleming made a return to the mat to win the women’s +78kg title. 

Other Senior English Open winners included: Leanne Black of SJC Alba (-48kg), Emily Hickman of Hardy Spicer (-52kg), Michael Horley of Kendal (-90kg), Curtis Dodge of Dragons Judo Academy (-73kg), Adam Conroy of Team Bath (-60kg) and Owen Livesey of Camberley (-81kg).  

The event received excellent feedback according to Chairman Kerrith Brown.

He said: “The feedback I have been getting about the competition is that it has been an excellent weekend and it has been great to see so many players enter.”

Click here to see a list of medal winners and the pool sheets are available at Judo technologies.

 All the medal and action photos can be viewed on facebook. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/set=a.10152020545833269.1073741869.84398713268&type=3&uploaded=30

Words by Donna Richardson.