Three Pinewood judoka set off on Friday to make the long trek North of the border to the Meadowbank sports centre in Edinburgh, for the acclaimed and very popular Sportif International judo championship.
As this is one of the designated GB national ranking events for cadets (U18), and as all three of the judoka are in the England squad, this was an important championship to do well at. This ensured that the event reached its maximum capacity months ago, and guaranteed a very strong home countries field as well as squads from abroad (Germany, Ireland, Sweden and Portugal).
Kiera Bateman (U48kg) was the first cadet up and battled well through to the final, where on this occasion was unable to overcome the top Scottish fighter on home ground, so she collected the first silver of the day. Second into battle was Olivia Spellman (U57kg) who also fought hard and well to reach the final, finally losing out to a fellow top ranked England squad fighter.
The third silver medal from the cadets came from William von Mallinckrodt, who came through a strong U73 kg group with his usual flamboyant judo, before being stopped in the final by a high ranking England squad fighter.
With the cadet section behind them, the girls continued through into the junior U21 section at their respective weights. They were both rewarded with another silver medal each after showing considerable stamina and skill in defeating opponents with a mixture of arm locks, strangles, throws and holds. Kiera just missed out on grabbing a gold, only losing out by a single penalty in golden score after an epic 9 minute fight with a girl 4 years her senior.
This took the Pinewood Judo club medal tally for the day to 5 silvers from the three cadets entered and was enough to secure 11th place overall out of 58 clubs / areas and countries. A long way to travel but a sterling performance from three young, talented and dedicated judoka