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The IJF world circuit
moves onto Estonia and Portugal on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 June
weekend with World Cup’s in Tallinn (men) and Lisbon (women) due
to feature 18 British judoka.
The events represent
the first opportunity for British judoka to self-fund their participation
at a World Cup if they are not selected by the British Judo Performance
Team, providing they meet the performance criteria.
A five-strong selected
team will be joined by 13 self-funded athletes.
In Estonia, British
Trials gold medallist Craig Fallon will see action in the -66kg
category.
Also selected in the
British Team are Sarajevo European Cup winner Winston Gordon and
Michael Horley, who took gold at the 2011 English Senior Open
and Northern Ireland Open. The pair will compete in the -90kg
category.
Michael Horley at the 2011 English Senior Open
© Mike Varey
Gregg Varey and James
Millar will be in -60kg action, Nathon Burns in -66kg and -73kg
duo Danny Williams and Jan Gosiewski will also compete.
Tom Reed and Tom Davis
will battle in the -81kg field while James Austin fights at-100kg
and Chris Sherrington contests the +100kg category.
Samantha Clark and Sarah
Clark are the lone selections for Lisbon and will tackle the -52kg
and -63kg categories respectively.
The remainder of the
British contingent are self-funded with Faith Pitman competing
alongside Sarah in the -63kg field.
Megan Fletcher fights
at -70kg, Fiona Jones at -78kg and Sarah Adlington sees action
in the +78kg category.
Margaret Hicks, Performance
Director, said: “We have a packed programme for our elite players
over the next three months leading into the World Championships
and we are now raising the bar for selection to this event and
importantly for the performances we expect players to achieve
over the next year, in order to be considered for the 2012 London
Olympic team.
"We have also opened
up additional opportunities to a wider group of players with the
first set of ‘self funded’ World Cups being made available at
Tallinn and Lisbon.
“To get approval to compete in these World
Cups a player must have won an European Cup medal this year, or
in 2010 and also be a member of the current British Squad. This
initiative will help intensify competition between the best British
players as we enter the final Olympic phase."
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