We are delighted to announce that we have a haul of medals from the British Adaptive and V.I. Championships!
On August the 5th our team from the Northern Ireland Judo Adaptive Squad took the Journey to Cardiff in Wales to compete against the other adaptive players from across the UK.
Supported by their parents, our coaches, and connections the team faced strong competition from the other Judoka on the mats, but we are delighted to say that the performances reflected the hard work put in at our training sessions and the results showed that with a feast of medals being flown back across the sea!
Here is the line up of our medal winners:
Gold Medals:
Carson
Ethan
Roisin
Edward
Johnny
Silver Medals:
Fintan
Cáolan
Patrick
Bronze Medals
Iain
We are immensely proud of our team, and we would also like to put on record our thanks to Sport N.I. for helping us to fund and empower our athletes (along with their parents and support team) to take part in the event.
Also, our Adaptive Squad sponsor Driver Training N.I. who helped us commence this great initiative to make Judo for all.
But that’s not all…
We also recently started the structured programming for our Pathway Squad with athlete profiling and testing.
The professional approach shown to our Performance and Talent Development Squad has filtered down to the future stars and alongside Lear Training, we held an athlete testing session in Lisburn on Saturday 12th August to help us better support the Judoka coming through the ranks.
This means that our Pathway Squad players will now be able to compete at a high level starting with the Welsh Open in September and have individual progression plans tailored for all athletes.
With over 30 at the session, the future is bright!
Again, we’d like to thank Sport N.I. as we’ll be able to substantially fund and support our Pathway Squad athletes going forward and thank you to Quo Pro recruitment as well for sponsoring our initiative to get it to where we are today.
Russell Brown, Chairman of the NIJF said:
“The last two weekends have been exhausting and exhilarating for Northern Ireland Judo, as we have seen some real fantastic performances and progressions for our athletes both in competition and the preparation for it.
It really sums up our #OneBigClub attitude that everyone in the Federation can achieve; and the best thing is, we are now in a robust position thanks to our funders, to support those with aspirations and those that want to train to enjoy all that Judo offers both physically, and mentally.
The addition of Stephen McCluskey as Lead Performance Coach has added a real sense of professionalism across the membership, and no one is left out, meaning we have the infrastructure to make Judo a force for all in Northern Ireland.
I’m genuinely looking forward to watching the future unfold and I’d like to thank everyone that has supported our initiatives and thank you to our clubs and coaches for being part of the One Big Club”.
Here’s a gallery of images from the last 2 weekends: