From Wednesday 16th to Friday 18th July 2025, the third Olympic Potential Training Camp of the year took place at the British Judo Centre of Excellence in Walsall.
The Northern Ireland Judo Federation’s National Talent and Identification Development Programme (NIJF NITDP) was in attendance at the intensive three-day camp, joining a select group of Britain’s top judoka. Representing the NIJF was senior -66kg athlete Ewan Murray, alongside Performance Lead Coach Sarah Barritt.
Ewan is preparing to compete at the upcoming European University Championships in Warsaw, Poland—a fantastic achievement, as he’s the only athlete from the island of Ireland selected for the event. This training camp served as part of his preparation.
Each day consisted of two randori sessions focused on both tachiwaza and newaza, with open mat time for technical refinement in between. The level of randori was world-class, providing Ewan the opportunity to train with high-performance athletes from his own weight category, many of whom compete internationally.
As expected, Day One posed a physical challenge, with Ewan travelling over early that morning. However, as the camp progressed, his performance steadily improved over the period of the camp, highlighted by several excellent ippons across the sessions.
Despite the inevitable soreness, Ewan thoroughly enjoyed the experience and welcomed the opportunity to train at such a high level while learning a range of new techniques.
The Northern Ireland Judo Federation looks forward to continuing its involvement in future camps of this calibre and supporting further NITDP athlete participation as we progress our Pathway and Talent Development players.
Sarah commented:
“This is a wonderful training opportunity for our players to gain exposure to high-level, high-intensity sessions with high level Judokas from around the country.
Ewan gave a fantastic account of himself, performing brilliantly in each exchange and progressing with every randori session.”
Well done Ewan for representing us so well at this and going forward for the European Championships and thank you to Sarah for supporting our players and pushing the Federation forward.
