Having prepared in Valencia Spain followed by the Olympic Training Camp in Alicante Spain, and then with training in Linz Austria, Josh competed on Saturday night (9th July) in Budapest at the Grand Slam Hungary. For Josh, this event comes off the back of a very successful block in February this year where he won Silver and Bronze in European Open events in Poland and Bosnia respectively and subsequently a Bronze at the Pan-American-Oceania Continental Senior Championships in Lima Peru in April. The session for the Cadet and Junior National Training Camp in Melbourne on Saturday was paused whilst 60+ participants of the camp cheered Josh on. Going into this event as World #38, Josh’s first match was against Ramos (World #58) from Guatemala. Ramos was physical and awkward and the early exchanges were quite even. Early in the match, Josh had the opportunity to go to the ground where his transition was relentless, working hard to release his trapped leg and scoring Ippon with a hold down. In the Round of 16 he was matched with World #33 Pantano (Italy). Josh did extremely well keeping up with Pantano’s early high pace and also defended well against some strong attacks. Josh started to build momentum and Pantano then had to defend strong Ouchi-Gari and Seoi-nage attacks from Josh. Pantano’s momentum slowed and Josh started to dictate the pace, looking strong for a Golden Score finish. Unfortunately, with less than 10 seconds to go Pantano threw caution to the wind and his attack paid off scoring on full-time. A tough pill to swallow for Josh, but also a great indication of how much his opening match intensity has improved and how he can really match it with the best. After this event, Josh will train in Austria for 2 days before heading to Croatia for the Zagreb Grand Prix 15-17 July.As I write this, Team-mates Aoife Coughlan and Katharina Haecker have just won their first 2 matches making the Quarter-Final. Unfortunately, both lost their QFs and also their Repechage matches for very respectable Grand Slam 7th place results. Congratulations guys and all the best for Zagreb.