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SPRING 2017
ISSUE 41
SIGHTS SET ON TOKYO
Young Guns:
CONTENTS
12
CHLOE COWEN VICKERS
16
YOUNG GUNS - SIGHTS SET ON TOKYO
4
EUAN BURTON
6
NEWSROOM
11
DAN GRADINGS
30
CHRIS MURPHY
38
KIDS CORNER
42
CLUB FOCUS - SKK JUDO CLUB
26
2017 PARIS GRAND SLAM
46
32
A DAY IN THE LIFE - JOHN MALKINSON
TECHNIQUE FOCUS - KATE HOWEY
ALL MATERIAL IN THIS MAGAZINE,
INCLUDING BOTH TEXT AND IMAGES,
IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT.
REPLICATION VIA REPUBLISHING
IN ANY PRINT OR DIGITAL FORM
REQUIRES CONSENT FROM THE
BRITISH JUDO ASSOCIATION.
50
CLASSIC MATCH: CLARK V DECOSSE
CONSULTANT EDITOR:
EUAN BURTON
THE FOUR-YEAR CYCLE BEGINS
4
Hi All
Welcome to this first edition of Matside
in 2017. There is plenty to whet your
appetite for the coming year. We take a
closer look at some of GB’s most exciting
young prospects as they begin their Tokyo
2020 campaigns, are treated to some
technical tips from Kate Howey and visit
the hotbed of talent production that is
the SKK judo club, as well as all the usual
features and contest news.
he five young athletes featured inside
are: Max Stewart, Amy Livesey, Bekky
Livesey, Lucy Renshall and Jemima Yeats-
Brown. All of them have moved into the senior
ranks in the past few years and are already
making an impression on the IJF World Tour,
so will have their sights firmly focused on
Tokyo and the Olympic rostrum in 2020.
At 23, the same age as Amy and Max, I
was in a similar situation. I had Athens and
the 2004 Olympics on my radar and was at
the start of a qualification journey that would
contain many of the highs and lows that would
ultimately lay the foundations for the rest of
my career to be built on. That four-year cycle
eventually ended in bitter disappointment
for me as it went down to the wire and the
last Olympic qualification event, the 2004
European Championships. I had worked my
way to the semi-finals but lost out to future
Olympic Champion, Ole Bischof, which sent
me into the bronze medal match.
There I went into Golden Score with
Spain’s Ricardo Echarte and while I pressed
forward for the win he threw in a last gasp
tomoe-nage, which landed me on my rear
end and meant I missed out on my first major
T
“BOTH RENSHALL AND STEWART
FELL JUST SHORT OF THE
MEDALS THIS YEAR BUT, AT 21
AND 23 YEARS OLD, IT IS AN
ENCOURAGING START TO 2017”
championship medal AND first Olympic Games
by the smallest margin possible, a koka in
Golden Score. It took me a long time and a
lot of tears to get over that loss, however,
my response to the disappointment of 2004
meant that in 2005 I won that crucial first
championship medal at the Europeans and
by 2008 I had put three major championship
medals on the table and was firmly en route to
the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as a current
World and European medallist.
All five of the featured athletes have already
stood on the rostrum either at age group
continental championships or IJF Grand Prix
level, so are in a significantly better position
than I was and I hope that their first proper
Olympic cycle ends more positively than mine.
Whatever happens in the following four years,
the experiences they will go through will teach
them a huge amount about their judo, even
more about who they are as people and they
will undoubtedly finish 2020 as more well-
rounded, more mature, more independent
athletes. I hope some will also finish with an
Olympic medal around their necks.
All the young athletes in question will be
joining a senior GB team with experienced
athletes and a 70kg Olympic medallist in situ.
Again, this mirrors the shape of the team I
joined at the start of the 2004 cycle. Back
then, double Olympic medallist, Kate Howey,
was one of our most consistent medallists and
often devastated opponents with her powerful
ippon judo and dynamite ne-waza
skills. I hope you all enjoy her
technical masterclass and are able
to integrate some of what she is
discussing back at your clubs.
Talking about clubs, this
edition features a look at one of
the country’s most successful
and consistent providers of
championship medal winning
judoka, SKK judo club. Three of the
MATSIDE
Euan Burton in his prime: competing back in 2011
five featured athletes in this edition hail from
that north-west powerhouse, which shows its
strength. However, the SKK history book runs
rather deeper than that; it includes numerous
Olympians, European Champions at Junior,
Under-23, University and Senior levels and
a 40-year record of producing successful
judoka. The man at the helm for the past
26 of those 40 years is Peter Blood and it
is testament to his dedication, joy for the
sport and caring for the athletes that the club
continues to go from strength to strength.
Many of you will, I am sure, have been
impressed by the displays of SKK’s Lucy
Renshall and Max Stewart at the recent Paris
Grand Slam in their debuts at the prestigious
event. Although Paris is one of the events that
every judoka dreams about winning, it was not
one of my happiest hunting grounds.
After years of falling short I did eventually
step up onto its podium and repay my
parents’ dedication in spending every
Valentine’s weekend for almost a decade
watching a full weekend of judo in the Bercy
Stadium; something I think my dad was far
happier with than my mum!
At least it was in the city of love and not
somewhere in the back of beyond in some
far-flung continent.
Both Renshall and Stewart fell just short
of the medals finishing with fifth places this
year, but, at 21 and 23 years old respectively,
it is an encouraging start to 2017 and a good
platform from which to jump to even bigger
and better things.
Paris was also the first opportunity to see
the new IJF rules being experimented with at
a major event. The IJF have made it very clear
to athletes and coaches that the phase up until
the World Championships will be utilised as
a “test period” where rules may be adjusted
or implemented differently,
depending on the outcomes
that they produce.
For my part, I was out
with a group of athletes
at the Belgian Open the
weekend before Paris and
this was my first taste of
coaching under the new
rules. The weekend proved
to be a success, not
least because I managed
to avoid the inevitable
shout of “YUKO!” which
will surely catch out most
of us coaches when our athlete lands their
opponent on their side in the heat of a
particularly tight battle.
In truth, I found the new rules
predominantly refreshing. In Belgium, they
seemed to ensure exciting, high scoring
matches where athletes were almost always
searching for the ippon rather than defending
a shido or small score they may have gained
early in the fight. The better tactical fighters
were already finding ways of working the rules
to their advantage and many were managing
to ensure that they were caught for waza-
ari rather than ippon, even if that meant
they went into the final minute of a contest
a number of scores down, but still with that
chance of ending the contest with their own
decisive ippon.
It would be interesting to hear what your
views are, particularly from any of you who
travelled to Paris for the Grand Slam.
Love them or hate them, the new rules
are here to stay in some form or other, and
our athletes will need to find a way to become
champions within them if they are to achieve
their World and Olympic dreams in the coming
four years.
As ever, take care and enjoy your judo.
Euan
EUAN BURTON
5
Max Stewart was on top form
at the Paris Grand Slam

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