Recent news articles

BUDOKAN MONS AND JUNIOR (U/11) COMPETITION – 17 MARCH

We will be holding our Mons and Junior (U/a11) competition at the club only a few weeks away.  This is a great opportunity for our youngest members to participate in competition in our own club. Please take advantage of the opportunity and challenge yourself especially if you have never participated in competition before. There are novice and graded divisions in each age category and weight divisions will be created on the day. The club medals for our event are legendary and worth competing for. We also need our older Juniors, our Seniors and our parents to assist in the running of this event, including: set-up (on Saturday 16th March), and on the day: front door entry, weigh-ins, first aid, scoring, timing, athlete marshalling, canteen, BBQ, and so on.  Please see Kerrye or Kate in the first instance.  A sheet will be placed on the main table at the club where you can write your name against activities that you would like to support for this event.  The competition information sheet as well as instructions for some of the key volunteer roles are attached to the email accompanying this newsletter.

SYDNEY INTERNATIONAL OPEN – 1–3 MARCH

Entries for the 2024 SIO close Tuesday 27th February. Our entries should be very strong this year and we encourage all eligible Budokan athletes to challenge themselves in competition at our home city. This year for the first time in decades, the event will be staged at the Whitlam Leisure Centre Liverpool. The competition schedule and event guide are attached to the email which accompanies this Newsletter. We wish all our Budokan athletes a great competition. All NSW clubs have been asked by Judo NSW to put forward competition volunteers. As one of the largest NSW clubs, if you have children competing in this event, please put your hand up to support the competition. See Franz Tandean at the club if you are interested or have any questions about this.

ACT INTERNATIONAL OPEN (IN GOULBURN) – 16-18FEB

I mentioned in my opening message how well our 28 Budokan athletes competed at Goulburn and what a great time we all had. 27 of our athletes competed in 36 divisions over 6 age categories, for the first time that the Junior and Senior Boys/Girls age categories were replaced by U11, U13, and U15 categories. Our athletes won 21 medals: 10 Gold, 5 Silver, 6 Bronze and 3 x 5th places. This means that 60% of divisions entered by our athletes resulted in a medal. Additionally, 3 other athletes fought for a medal. We also had 2 athletes contest Kata winning a Gold medal. Details of the results for all our athletes are attached to the email accompanying this Newsletter. You can also find the completed draws at Judomanager.com 

  • We set many challenges for our athletes when we think they are ready for them, and whilst most competitors have 2-4 matches in their weight division on a competition day, we encourage very competitive Budokan Cadet athletes to contest higher age categories to get more matches and experience, and in doing so build resilience. A great example was Max Zollinger who fought in Cadet, Junior Men and Senior Men categories, having 12 matches in total and winning 2 Gold medals and fighting for a medal in Seniors, a great outcome.  Bianca Tandean also fought in 3 age categories having 9 matches and winning Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. It takes courage and both physical and mental strength to say focussed over a full day of competition.
  • At the competition, we also had 3 coaches (Rob, Kerrye, Josh), 1 Referee (Lubo)  and 2 Kata judges (Dale, Franz) as well as our famous Budokan travelling circus of families who, as is customary in the club, spent valuable downtime together after each day of competition. 
  • The last time Budokan won 10 or more Gold medals at an ACTIO was in 2013 (12 Gold) and the last time in any State Open was in 2017 SIO (11 Gold).
  • The competition management system “Judomanager.com” indicates that Budokan had the highest medal tally in both Juniors (U11, 13, 15) and Seniors (Cadets, JM/W, SM/W) which is a great achievement for the club and a great start to the competition year – keep it up guys and stay focussed on your goals.

NATIONAL AND INTERATIONAL UPDATE

NATIONAL CAMPSOur year began with some of our higher-level athletes participating in the National Training Camp at the National Performance Centre in Melbourne from 8 – 13 January. Josh Katz, Max Zollinger, Aaron Xu and Crosby Peake participated with Kerrye, Nathan and I also participating in a coaching capacity.  A number of Budokan Juniors and first year Cadets also attended the Futures Camp at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra on 11-13 January. Ben Zollinger, Daniil Savytskyi and Tim Reshanov participated in this camp with Nathan also attending as one of the coaches.  Following the ACT International Open, Max Zollinger, Clarissa Vumbaca and Nikola Dobric participated in the Training Camp held at the AIS with Kerrye and Rob participating in a coaching capacity.So the club’s involvement in only 2 months of 2024 has already been quite significant.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Hi to all Budokanis, old and new.  Welcome to a number of new club members – we hope that you enjoy your Judo experience at Budokan. Please let me (or any of our great Committee members or coaches) know if there is anything we can do for you. 

  • We have had a great start to the year with class numbers reaching an all-time high. Our membership currently fluctuates between 205 and 207. Class sizes are very healthy with regular numbers for our Mons class at 20, for our Junior classes at 50 and our Senior graded classes 20ish, which is amazing. Dinos also sits at 8-10 and Monday’s beginner/Kyu Grade Seniors at 10-12.

 

  • A number of our athletes participated in the National Training Camp at the National Performance Centre (NPC) in Melbourne as well as the post-ACT International Open Camp. Our results at the ACTIO this year were really great and auger well for a solid competition year ahead.  Details are in this newsletter. Unfortunately, Josh was injured on the last day of the Melbourne Camp and had to miss his first block of international events (Portugal GP and France GS) and will also miss the next block (Austria GP and Georgia GS). We wish him well in his recovery and his return to IJF Olympic Qualifying events, the next being Pan America-Oceania in Brazil end of April.

 

  • We have the important Sydney International Open next weekend after which National selections will proceed for upcoming international events for our Cadets and Juniors. We also have our Budokan Mons and Junior (U/11) competition coming up on the 17th March, so please reach out and get involved in this important club event.

 Please let me know if you have any news that you want to share in future newsletters and I can do my best to accommodate you. Enjoy this Newsletter and  “See you on the mat”.                                                                                             Rob K

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