Although Nicholas trained extremely hard in the morning after a mouth full of blood, he knew that the state training was not going to be something that he could commit to for the next six weekends.

We are extremely proud of Nicholas and hope that we will see him in the NSW squad in the future.

State training is extremely ‘intensive’, not just the training but the travelling and sitting in a car for 10 hours on a Saturday for two hours of hard training.  It is not an attractive choice for many judoka and is definitely not attractive to many parents, as they lose a whole weekend for judo.

So, to make the team is the first step, to stay on the team and be selected to represent NSW at the Australian Nationals, is an accomplishment all on its own.

This year again saw Riley and James Zahra (Illawarra), Michael and Molly, Blake and Steven Zahra (Illawarra, compete in the Jr Nage no Kata on the Friday night.

They had been training on Saturday mornings at Homebush Olympic Park, before the state squad, with two of Australia’s greatest kata competitors Ernie Wakamatsu and Dale Keogh, They both gave their time and expertise to our members and, what they learnt and the experience in kata that was shared, it was not a surprise with the medal results of our members, as they had great teachers.

It was great to see that the NSW kata teams were strong and the results of medals in each group showed this.

It was fantastic to see this year, our youngest NSW representative, Amelie, step up to train at state level.  She is no stranger to the hard training, running around Bawley Point with coach Chris, and the other state members, but it was inspiring to watch as she participated in the state squad training team, for her first year, where she was strong and excelled with the experience.  She really enjoyed the training and she was strong and willing to put in the hard work to get her to compete at national standard for the NSW team. Well done Amelie, this, I am sure, is the first of many Australian teams you will be in.

The results were as follows:

Nage-No-Jr Kata Blake Nolan and Steven Zahra GOLD

Nage-No-Jr Kata Riley Nolan and James Zahra SILVER

Nage-No-Jr Kata Michael Haughey and Molly Haughey BRONZE.

Blake Nolan BRONZE cadet under 66kg and competed in the Junior men under 66kg

Michael Haughey SILVER cadet under 55kg and BRONZE Junior men under 55kg

Molly Haughey BRONZE Senior girls under 57kg

Riley Nolan and Amelie Gautier competed in the junior boys and girls but, with so many competitors, unfortunately did not medal.

Congratulations to these members and a huge thank you to Sensei Chris Gautier.

If you would like to learn Judo, you can visit our website at Yuukan Judo Club or you could pop in around 5pm on a Tuesday or Wednesday night at the Kioloa/Bawley Point Community Hall, where you will be able to train with some Australian National Judo competitors.