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Double gold for England Double gold for England at the Finnish Special Needs Open held at Pajulahti Finland. This was by far the best result that the English Squad has had for some years; Chris Summerhayers (Kodachi Judo Kwai Bristol, won the Over 70kgs Open; and David Woodland Kodachi Judo Kwai won the Under 70kgs Open. Both players had the bit between their teeth for this pool and both players showed good skill and determination with a lot of courage. Chris Summerhayes had the harder side of the pool with the daunting task of competing against Craig Edwards 6ft 6in 149kgs - man mountain from Wales. Chris won against Craig in the semi by two wazaris. Arnold Pruis had a much easier ride in his half of the pool -winning by a good Ippon against Jasper Duinisveld in the semi. The final of the Finnish Over 70kgs Open class Previously on mat two David Woodland made his mark in S/N judo by winning two very good fights against more experienced players. First to fall was Mario Gallis just promoted to 1st Dan; David threw Mario for a wazari with Harai goshi and very nearly got him again with the same throw. This put him in the semi finals against Daniel Noorthoek Netherlands - another seasoned campaigner. David threw him with o-soto-gari for Ippon, which put him in the finale against Henk Vlieland Netherlands. The final of the Finnish under 70kgs Open class The International European Judo 4 all Competition is one of the highlights of the S/N calendar and this year it was held at Pajulahti Finland, Pajulahti is the Finnish National Training Centre for Sport, it is situated 30klm west of the city of Lahti. It is built on the edge of a beautiful lake with clear but cold water; trees down to the water edge with outcrops of granite rock. Accommodation was good and plenty of good healthy food, as this was now approaching the longest day in Finland it was hard getting use to 24 hour of daylight, this did cause a bit a problem getting to sleep. The judo camp kicked off on Friday with training in the morning and divisioning in the afternoon. Although not a big camp 120 player from 7 counties produced quality players. Divisioning went well with very few changes -this seemed to settle the players and all worked well. The Mens -81kgs L1 - turned out to be the most interesting group, with 2 players from England, 3 from the Netherlands and 1 from Finland. This was always going to be the top group; it also meant that 3 of the top players were in this division. C Summerhayes (England) S Hakala (Finland) A Pruis (NetherLands). Three other players were also in this pool M Koenders, J Duinsveld both from Netherland and a new young player at this level David Woodlands for England - all these players are L1. Other players in the team also had good players in their pools. Sean McKeller England had J Jensen, from Norway in his pool, -90kgs L2, in fact all the pools had good players. The Ladies also had difficult pools; Tina Kelly had some difficult Finnish ladies to contend with. Day 2 Competition day The day got off to a good start with all of the English squad winning their opening bouts, as the day progressed, Tina Kelly got to the finale of her group, but unfortunately picked up an injury and had to retire, even so she had accumulated enough points to win silver. The men’s -66kgs was a good pool, with three English men making the Semi-finals; it meant Shaun Banks (Stokenchurch) and Peter Jury (Kodachi) had to fight each other with Peter going on to the final. The other semi saw Daniel Brooks defeated by Daniel Noorthoek (Netherlands) but Peter won the final to take England’s first gold of the day. Graig Edwards also took gold in the Mens +100 as did Daniel Amel-Azizpour in the mens-90kgs, Sean McKeller did well in his pool to win silver considering this was Sean’s first competition after injuring his leg. The men’s -81kgs was a hard pool, with David Woodland on one side of the pool and Chris Summerhayes in the other; Chris did progress to the semi but lost by a yuka to a very good Finn Sami Hakala, Full results |