Over the weekend of the Nationals, Josh fought in the Abidjan African Continental Open. This was only a week after competing in the Tahiti Oceania Open in which he placed 2nd electing not to fight in the final. Competing in these events was not part of our Paris preparation plan which was to end after the Panamerican-Oceania Championships in Brazil in April. In Africa Josh won 3 matches to make the final, and this was enough to secure the Oceania Continental Quota position for the Australian Olympic Team to Paris. Enormous congratulations to Josh on a monumental effort getting to this point and achieving a world ranking of 37 after suffering a serious knee injury in January and missing a significant number of qualification events. His trajectory after 2023’s performances (5th place at the Tel Aviv Grand Slam, Silver at the Panamerican-Oceania Championships, 5th place Perth Oceania Open) indicated a direct qualification was very likely, so putting together enough results this year in only 3 competitions is a great achievement. Congratulations to both Aoife and Katharina who have had amazing results during this Olympic cycle and will both easily qualify direct. Katharina will be seeded top 8 and Aoifa will be just outside the seedings. The official announcement of the Australian Olympic Team will occur this week with the final qualification event just completed.
- The club has a strong and impressive history of Olympic Games participation:
- 1988 Seoul Korea – Kerrye (Women’s demonstration event); Rob (National Women’s Coach)
- 2000 Sydney – Rob (Judo Sport Services Manager SOCOG); Kerrye (Field of Play Supervisor SOCOG)
- 2004 Athens Greece – Morgan Endicott-Davies (now ZenBu coach), Jessica Malone
- 2016 Rio de Janeiro Brazil – Nathan and Josh Katz
- 2020 Tokyo Japan – Nathan Katz
- 2024 Paris France – Josh Katz