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The British Judo Association
has today launched a ‘Paralympic Potential’ talent search, in
association with UK Sport, Paralympics GB and the English Institute
of Sport, to find more female visually impaired judoka to compete
in the 2012 Paralympic Games.
With just over two years
to go to the Paralympic Games, this will be the final push to
find more women within the sport of judo that have the potential
to progress and compete in London 2012.
Great Britain fielded
a team of just four players in the men’s competition at the 2008
Beijing Paralympic Games and no players in the women’s competition.
Whilst British Judo’s Paralympic Programme Manager, Dave Sanders,
can be confident of fielding a full men’s team in 2012, there
are currently only two women on the programme.
“At the Paralympic Games
there are six female weight categories and at the moment we only
have two female players on the VI Squad.
“It would be unrealistic
to say we could field a full team in the women’s competition,
but certainly we want to have at least three players that are
able to put in fantastic performances and hopefully win medals,”
Sanders said.
The British Judo Paralympic
Programme staff will look to work with potential players very
closely and fast track them where possible, giving them a real
fighting opportunity of competing at the Paralympics, as they
are doing with their newest recruit Lesley Reid.
48-year-old Reid from Hertfordshire
has been a coach at Melbourn Judo Club for many years and never
thought her eyesight was bad enough to classify her as visually
impaired.
“In 2004 I had a problem
with one of my eyes, a condition called myopic macular degeneration,
and then in 2006 it started happening to my other eye as well
and it was at that point that I had to stop driving.
“I took the test last year
after Dave and my family persuaded me and then forgot all about
it as I didn’t think I would be partially sighted enough to qualify
or good enough to be able to compete in a Paralympic Games.
“But then I got an email
from British Blind Sport saying that I was measured as a B3, which
is the least visually impaired category and at that point, I knew
I had to go for it!”
This year, Lesley was selected
to compete in the VI World Championships in Turkey alongside a
team of five, and won a bronze medal.
At the time she said, “I
was really not expecting to medal, the World Championships are
just the beginning for me so to win a medal is a real bonus.”
A man that knows all too
well the excitement of a Paralympic Games and the honour of being
selected, Ian Rose, five-time Paralympian and two-time Paralympic
medallist, has joined the BJA as Talent Development Coordinator.
“We are essentially looking
to work with visually impaired females already doing judo or have
been through the early grades and who have got the potential to
improve.
“Some of these players
might not know whether they are partially sighted enough and what
their sight classification is, but we would encourage them to
get in touch anyway to see whether we can work with them,” Rose
said.
Any female judo players
or coaches that know someone with experience of judo, who are
aged 18+ and hold a UK passport, and are visually impaired or
may not know the classification, should contact Ian Rose on ian.rose@britishjudo.org.uk
.
You can also watch the
British Judo vodcast episode three here,
which is all about the campaign.
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