Budokan Judo Club Inc. Results

2013 Australian Judo Championships

Wollongong NSW 7-10 June

At the 2013 Nationals, 29Budokan athletes competed in

43 divisions winning 23 medals:

10 x Gold, 3 x Silver,10 x Bronze medals + 5 x 5thand 2 x 7thplacing

These figures include 1 x Masters competitor, and we also had 1 x Kata competitor winning a Silver award

In the 12 National Championships in which Budokan has been represented since 2002, 230 of our athletes have competed in 299 divisions and have achieved 178 medals: 66 Gold, 39 Silver, and 73 Bronze medals.

Budokan Judo Clubhas had another amazing campaign with unsurpassed (in the club’s history) representation in the NSW Team and results at the National Championships this year. The Nationals were again held in Wollongong over the June long weekend at the impressive Wollongong Sports and Entertainment Centre, in a 3-competition mat configuration. The venue was again terrific, the competition well run, with many lessons learned from last year being incorporated. Congratulations to Tournament Director Ben Broadhead for achieving an “international-level” standard event, arguably the best since Sydney 2000. Features of the competition control systems included electronic match order in both the warm-up and competition areas, and professional staging area onto the field-of-play. Unfortunately live streaming of matches in the warm up area was not functioning during the competition. Thepassion of the Club was again on displayfor the entire Judo community to see with 18 Budokan families providing enthusiastic support.

Again, we far exceeded our participation objective with a jump to 29 athletes (from 19 in 2009 and 2010, 23 in 2011, and 25 in 2012) competing in 43 divisions (from 23 in 2009, 25 in 2010, 30 in 2011, and 35 in 2012), our highest participation ever. The challenge this year was to improve on both our participation as well on our overall results. Theskills of the club'sathleteswere tested andtheirresults againfar surpassedour expectations.

The club had 7 new starters to the Nationals campaign and a number of athletes competing this year in new age categories and / or weight divisions. New athletes were: Oliver Jennings, Finn Tafft, Rauiri Edwards, Bjorn Tandean, Rachael Dray, Logan O’Brien, and in the Masters David Willison. Well done to these athletes for taking on the Nationals challenge. Athletes moving up an age category included: from Junior to Senior Boys Xavier Tafft gaining a 3rd, from Senior Boys to Cadets Conor Edwards fighting for 3rd, and also from Senior Boys to Cadets Kyle McIndoe winning the division. Connor and Kyle also competed in Junior Men for the first time and Kyle, Josh Katz and Jakob Edwards also competed in Senior Men for the first time, so in all we had 15 athletes competing either for the first time, or in new age categories.

The results for the club represent another significant improvement in 12 months with the depth and consistency across all of our age groups auguring well for future growth in the senior age categories. This should be very motivating to everyone in the club. Our objective to build an effective development mechanism within the club for feeding very young Judoka through all the age categoriescontinues to indicate achievement and continual improvement. In doing so, the club is setting our athletes up for distinction at the senior level should they choose to continue accepting the challenges presented.

The NSW State Squads this year were very well attended and the spirit in both the Junior and Senior Squads was great. The coaching machine at the Nationals worked extremely well and allowed the NSW athletes to perform to their best abilities. The Junior Coaching Team in particular was well structured, coordinated, and unified in approach so that all NSW Cadet and Junior athletes were well looked after on competition day.

The club’s results this year were truly amazing with athletes bringing home medals and placings as follows.

Gold medals went to: Maddison Edwards, Saskia Brothers, Zach Colman, Katelyn Boyd, Kiernan Tafft, Naomi de Bruine, Kyle McIndoe, Cameron Leishman, Josh Katz, and Nathan Katz

Silver medals went to:Finn Tafft, Naomi de Bruine, and Kiliane Beunard

Bronze medals went to: Kendall Lane, Xavier Tafft, Amber McIndoe, Josh Katz, Vanessa Hall x 2, Cameron Leishman, Jakob Edwards, Naomi de Bruine, and Nathan Katz

5th Places (fought for Bronze) went to:Lachlan Brothers, Conor Edwards, Logan O’Brien, Amber McIndoe x 2

7th Place went to:Oliver Jennings, Jakob Edwards

Club2 x Junior Girls (compared to 2 in 2012)

Participation:5 x Junior Boys (3 in 2012)

3 x Senior Girls (4 in 2012)

6 x Senior Boys (6 in 2012)

3 x Cadet Girls (2 in 2012)

5 x Cadet Boys (3 in 2012)

3 x Junior Women (incl. 2 x Cadet Girls) (same as 2012)

6 x Junior Men (incl. 4 x Cadet Boys) (5 x J/M incl. 3 x C/B in 2012)

4 x Senior Women (incl. 2 x Cadet Girls + 1 x Jnr Women) (same as 2012)

5 x Senior Men (incl. 3 x Cadet Boys + 2 x Jnr Men)(3 x S/M incl. 1 x C/B + 1 x J/M in 2012)
1 x Masters, 1 x Kata

Age Category Breakdown

Age Category / No. of divisions / Results
1st / 2nd / 3rd / 5th / 7th / U/P
Junior Boys/Girls / 7 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 0/1 / 2
Senior Boys/Girls / 9 / 2 / 0 / 2 / 1/0 / 4
Cadets / 8 / 3 / 0 / 2 / 2/0 / 1
Junior Men/Women / 9 / 2 / 1 / 3 / 1/0 / 2
Senior Men / Women
(Masters) / 9
(+1) / 0 / 1 / 3 / 1/1 / 3
(+1)
Total / 43 / 10 / 3 / 10 / 5/2 / 12(+1)

SUMMARY OF CLUB ACHIEVEMENT

In my tallies below, I have not included Kyu Grades and Masters events to allow for a fair comparison with the 2012 results and also a comparison with the various States’ results, given that I don’t have the Kyu Grades results.

In 2012, NSW achieved 94 medals: 32 Gold, 26 Silver and 36 Bronze, 2.4 times our nearest rival Victoria (with 40): 14, 13, and 13,with QLD (34): 9, 9, and 16, and then WA (31): 6, 7, and 18. (numbers not guaranteed to be exact).

At the 2013 Nationals, (excluding +50kg Junior Boys and 1 extra division in Junior Girls where the results were not distributed), NSW picked up 105 medals, an 11% increase on 2012, with30 Gold, 33 Silver and 42 Bronze, 2.7 times the 38 medals from Victoria, with 15, 7, and 16, with QLD (30): 8, 11, and 11, and WA (26) 8, 6, and 12.

In 2012, Budokan’s 8 Gold, 6 Silver and 7 Bronze medals contributed 25% of NSW’s Gold medal tally and 22% of NSW’s total medal tally.

In 2013, Budokan’s 10 Gold, 3 Silver and 10 Bronze (23 medals) was an increase of 6% to 31% of NSW’s Gold medal tally and we maintained our 22% contribution to a higher NSW total medal tally of 105. In all respects, Budokan’s contribution to NSW’s result is quite remarkable and the trend is very encouraging. Another remarkable statistic is that Budokan’s 10 Gold medals were won by 10 different athletes.

In 2012, Budokan had the highest number of Gold medals and the highest medal tally of any NSW club followed by UNSW. This year, our 10 Gold medals werestill the highest of any club in NSW and I believe in Australia. Judo NSW has indicated that our 23 medals (from 29 athletes) also represented the highest total medal performance of any club in NSW. What a great achievement guys – congratulations!!! Congratulations also to the following clubs for their performance at the 2013 Nationals: UNSW (20 medals from 35 competitors), Kido (10 medals from 7 competitors), Tiger Do (8 from 19), Illawarra (7 from 11), Zen Bu (6 from 16), BlacktownCity (5 from 10), Bushido (5 from 7), and Shinsei (5 from 8). 15 out of 24 clubs representing NSW brought back medals. NSW also dominated all age categories except Senior Men and it is therefore really encouraging that we had 3 new athletes to the Senior Men category this year in Josh Katz, Kyle McIndoe and Jakob Edwards, and also that we maintained our 1 Senior Men’s medal count by Cameron Leishman in 2012, with Nathan Katz’s Bronze this year – it can only get stronger for Budokan at the Senior level. In 2012 our Senior Women took a Gold (Women’s Open), 2 x Silver and 2 x 5th places. This year the girls won a Silver, 2 x Bronzes and 1 x 5th but we didn’t field the Open this year, so results there were reasonably consistent.

Overall 10 Budokan athletes participated in 18 Senior (per NSW Squad) events (9 Junior Men/Women divisions and 9 Senior Men/Women divisions) and won the following medals:

2 Gold (of NSW’s 8 Gold, or 25%), 2 Silver (of NSW’s 13, or 15%) and 6 Bronze (of NSW’s 18, or 33%), in total 10 of NSW’s 39 medals (or 26%). We are clearly more than a Junior Development Club. More impressive is that of these 10 athletes, 6 are Cadets, and 3 are Junior Men/Women, so it can only get better.

The statistics from our Juniors (per NSW Squad) was equally impressive in terms of its contribution to NSW’s results. We had 24 athletes compete in 24 Cadet Boys/Girls and Junior and Senior Boys/Girls divisions (8 Cadet divisions, 9 Senior B/G and 7 Junior B/G) who won the following medals:

8 Gold (of NSW’s 22 Gold, or 36%), 1 Silver (of NSW’s 20 Silver, or 5%), and 4 Bronze(of NSW’s 26 Bronze, or 15%), in total 13 of NSW’s 68 medals (or 19%).

Our 28 athletes competed in 43 divisions winning 10 Gold medals (of NSW’s 30 Gold, or 33%), 3 Silver (of NSW’s 33 Silver, or 9%) and 10 Bronze (of NSW’s 42 Bronze, or 24%).

So our 23 medals tally up to 22% or just over 1/5 of the NSW medal tally of 105.

In 2012, I compared our Nationals results with those from all the State Teams represented, and Budokan would have been ranked 4th in Gold medal tallybehind NSW, VICand QLD. Last year, in terms of overall medal count, compared with other States, Budokan would have been ranked 5th behind NSW, VIC, WA and QLD.

In 2013, our Nationals results compared to those of the other States placed us3rd in terms of Gold medals (10) behind NSW (33), and VIC (15). Behind us were WA (9), QLD (8), ACT and TAS (4) and NT and SA (0). Having said that as mentioned, Masters and Kyu Grades competition results were not included. In terms of overall medals, Budokan’s 23 medals placed us 5th behind NSW (105), VIC (39), QLD (32) and WA (27). Behind us were ACT (19), TAS (8), NT (6) and SA (5). Like 2012, the 2013 comparisons are quite remarkable given that I am comparing one club with entire State Teams.

Detailed results and tables of statistics are included at the end of this report.

Interesting club Statistics for the 2013 nationals

  • 28 athletes (compared to 19 in 2009 and 2010, 23 in 2011 and 24 in 2012) competed in 42 divisions (compared to 23 in 2009, 25 in 2010, 30 in 2011, and 35 in 2012).
  • Of these 28 athletes, 21 competed in the 2012 Nationals, indicating that we had a core group of 75% of our athletes having previously competed at Nationals. This is 5% higher than the previous year.
  • 13 of these 21 athletes who competed in both the 2012 and 2013 Nationals, won 19 medals in 2012, and 15 of these athletes won 21 medals in 2013, 8 of these medals being higher than those won in the previous year. This goes to show that results are about experience and consistency.
  • 5 sets of siblings (including for the first time 4 from the same family, the Edwards)competed (compared to 5 sets in 2012, 7 in 2011 and 5 in 2010):4 x Edwards, 3 x Taffts, 2 x Brothers, McIndoes, and Katz’s
  • 4 athletes (compared to 5 in 2011 and 4 in 2012) competed in 2 age categories each (Conor Edwards (5th place) Vanessa Hall (2 x Bronze), Nathan Katz (Gold and Bronze) and Jakob Edwards (Bronze and 7th)
  • 5 athletes (compared to 2 in 2011 and 3 in 2012) competed in 3 age categories with Naomi de Bruine, for the 3rd year in a row (winning Gold, Silver and Bronze medals), Amber McIndoe, for the 2nd year in a row (Bronzeand 2 x 5th placings), Cameron Leishman, for the 2nd year in a row (Gold and Bronze), and Josh Katz (Gold and Bronze), and Kyle McIndoe (Gold). Thankfully, after much lobbying, we were able to exert enough pressure last year to have the JFA change the previous format where a Cadet playing Junior M/W and Seniors had to go through all the divisions in one day. The only down-side now is that they have to make weight for Seniors (contested on Sunday) after the end of their Cadet and Junior M/W divisions (on Saturday), as do Junior M/W competing in Seniors.
  • 6 athletes (plus David Willison in Masters) competed in their first Australian Championships, compared to 5 in 2011 and 2012 and 4 in 2010: Oliver Jennings, Finn Tafft, Rauiri Edwards, Bjorn Tandean, Rachael Dray and Logan O’Brien. Congratulations to these Budokan athletes for taking the major step in competing at National level.
  • Of these 6 athletes, 1 medalled this year (compared to 2 in 2009, 1 in 2010, 3 in 2011, and 2 in 2012): Finn Tafft (Silver) with Logan O’Brien fighting for Bronze in his first Nationals (5th place), both with a great effort. Oliver won 1 from 2 matches but should have also fought for a Bronze after being thrown with a dangerous technique which arguably should have been penalised, rather than scored. Unfortunately Rauiri lost to Oliver and Bjorn and Rachael had 2 very tough competitors in their respective divisions.
  • 3 athletes have moved up an age category since competing in the 2012 Nationals (compared to 7 in 2012): Xavier Tafft from winning Junior Boys in 2012 to a Bronze medal in Senior Boys this year, Conor Edwards from 2ndin Senior Boys in 2012 to 5th place in Cadets in 2013, and Kyle McIndoe from winning Senior Boys in 2012 to winning Cadets in 2013, quite an achievement. It often takes some experience at the higher age category to get into the medal rounds even if results at the younger category have been significant – this is a patience and maturity game, learning to adapt to the older athletes and more mature style.
  • 2 first time medallists at Nationals (compared to 3 in both 2009 and 2010, 5 in 2011, and 7 in 2012): Finn Tafft (Silver), Zach Colman (Gold) - a significant milestone for these athletes. A number of athletes also achieved their first medals in their age category having previously medalled in lower age categories: Vanessa Hall (Bronze in Junior Women improving on her 5thplace in 2012, and Bronze in Senior Women improving on her 2012 5th place) and Jakob Edwards (Bronze in Junior Men improving on his unplaced result in 2012). Well done to all these Budokanis on your persistence and ededication.
  • 6 first time Gold medallists at Nationals: Maddison Edwards improving on her 2012 Silver, Saskia Brothers improving on her 2011 Bronze and after having to withdraw last year due to illness, Zach Colman improving on his 2012 5th place, Katelyn Boyd improving on her 2012 Silver, Kiernan Tafft improving on his 2010 Bronze, 2011 5th place and 2012 Bronze, and Cameron Leishman, improving on his 2010 7th place, 2011Silver and 2012 Bronze. Josh Katz also achieved his first Gold medal in the Junior Men category improving on his 2012 Silver. Again, persistence has paid off for these consistent and dedicated athletes. You can see that many of these athletes have competed in numerous Nationals before striking the elusive Gold. The trick will be to stay at that level.
  • Nathan Katz won his fourth Junior Men National medal, backing up his 2012 Gold. He also achieved his second Senior Men’s medal, and his first in the very competitive U/66kg division, improving on his 2012 5th place. Nathan has now won 7 National Gold medals and 13 medals in 10 Nationals (since 2004). He will be selected for the Senior OJU World Cup in November and is awaiting confirmation of selection to the Junior World Championships in October. Nathan is a great example of a dedicated and committed athlete but with a solid balance in his life, and is commended for being such a fine role model in the club.
  • In 2011, in a first for the club, Nathan Katz won medals in all 3 age categories. The club improved on that in 2012 with two athletes winning medals in all 3 age categories, Naomi de Bruine and Cameron Leishman. In 2013, of the 5 athletes competing in 3 divisions (Amber McIndoe, Naomi de Bruine, Josh Katz, Kyle McIndoe, and Cameron Leishman), only Naomi was able to medal in all 3 age categories, with Cameron and Josh each medalling in 2 age categories, and Amber and Kyle each medalling in 1 age category. The statistics on numbers of matches indicates the competition “load” for athletes competing in multiple age categories, which is essential for preparation for international competition.
  • Naomi de Bruine won her 5thNational Gold medal this year with a win in Cadets, followed by a Silver in Junior Women and her second Senior Women’s medal, this time a Bronze taking her total National medal tally to 11, a very impressive tally for a 17 year old.
  • Interestingly, both Kendall Lane and Josh Katz who each won their third (and back-to-back) National Gold medal in 2012, had to settle for Bronze medals: Kendall in Senior Girls, and Josh in Cadet Boys. In her first loss in 4 Nationals, Kendall fought valiantly after sustaining a back injury at the end of State Squad and had to compete through this injury. Josh made a very uncharacteristic tactical error in his second Cadet match to get caught with a strangle but came back winning his next 3 Cadet matches to take the Bronze and then the next 3 matches in Junior Men to take the Gold. With Josh’s Gold in Junior Men improving on his 2012 Silver, at 15 years, Josh has now won 8 National medals in 5 Nationals since 2009, 4 of them Gold, an impressive achievement.
  • Cameron Leishman improved on his significant National medal tally taking him to 9 medals, with 6 Bronzes and 2 Silvers, and now finally 1 Gold to add to the tally. I said last year that “Surely the elusive Gold is now imminent”, a prophecy finally realised.
  • 3 of the 6 Silver medals won by Budokanis in 2012 were converted to Gold in 2013 (Maddison Edwards, Katelyn Boyd, and Josh Katz (in Junior Men). Monday was a staggering day where we had 6 Budokanis in finals and 5 converted these to a Gold medal (Maddison, Katelyn, plus Saskia Brothers, Zach Colman and Kiernan Tafft) so the potential for further growth and depth in the medal count is clear.