14th Junior and 23rd Senior European Championships
Wroclaw, Poland 16-18th May 2008

COMPETITION REPORT
by Katja Hansen

The Scottish team flew to Wroclaw (pronounced “Vroslof”) Poland, from Prestwick in the early hours of Tuesday 13th of May.
The team, a mixture of fresh faces and veterans, and that’s including coaches, consisted of;

JUNIORS

SENIORS

COACHES

Arriving 2 days earlier than required and made good use of our extra time, scheduling training sessions in the newly commandeered hotel car park.
Mr Boydell took full advantage of the Hotel’s swimming pool, putting the team through a superb fitness and team bonding session.
On the Wednesday morning we took the team to see the Orbital Sports Hall, so everyone could get a feel for the arena they’d be competing in.  Overall everyone agreed that this outing helped with his or her mental preparation for the event.

       The team outside the Orbita sports hall. Right to left:
Sean Wheelan, Stephanie Willis, Nicole Pedley, Michelle Redmond, Jamie Presly,
Andy O’Hare, Allison Ogley, Heath Denholm, Samantha Merritt, Mark Boydell, Julia Cross, Mark McGeachie and Jason Munro.
(Not pictured because we’re too pretty, are Jon Ford and myself.)

 

On Friday 16th the Junior events kick started the Championships.
Sean, Stephanie, Nicole and Jason were first into the thick of it with 1st degree patterns all being called in the morning.
Stephanie was first up on the raised centre ring against Josefine Tolf, Sweden, who took the decision.
Nicole had Germany, and unfortunately also went out in round 1. 
Jason and Sean both progressed into the 3rd round. Russia’s Valeriy Tsoy stopped Sean.
Jason had a close match with Italy’s Mateo Coppola, who clinched the round when Jason hesitated mid movement in Choong Gun.
Samantha Merritt scooped up bronze for 2nd degree patterns, losing out to Russia in the semi-finals.
Nicole then had to rush for her sparring division (-50kg) later in the morning. Unfortunately she was out in the first round to a strong Polish girl.

The afternoon saw Alison up for 1st degree patterns against Poland’s Marzanna Pawlik, an experienced competitor who put her out, eventually going on to win Gold, despite (in my opinion) her pattern style being somewhat slow and lacking in rhythm.
Unfortunately this was the case for a lot of the patterns we saw going through the rounds and made us wonder if we’d stumbled into a Karate event by mistake.
Mark McGeachie had an uncharacteristic stumble in his first round of 2nd degree patterns, which unfortunately handed the match to his opponent.
Rounding the day off was Stephanie’s sparring in the over 60kg’s. Although full of grit and determination, not enough to get her through to the 2nd round. Her weakness being, a lack of ballast, against big girls, in a division that has no upper weight limit. She’s now decided to drop to under 60kg, which will suit her style of sparring better.

Saturday 17th
The sparring divisions for the remaining juniors and all seniors began.
Jason Munro (-63kg.) took out Martin Nikolić from Herzegovina in round 1, but was defeated by Dylan Fitzgibbon from Ireland in round 2. Dylan went on to take Gold. Keep your hands up Jason! Silly points cost him the fight.
Callum Ross, also –63kg, fought his way brilliantly into round 3, beating 1st the Bulgarian then the Ukrainian to meet Poland’s Piotr Olkievicz. Had he paced himself better during the first 2 bouts maybe Callum would have gone through, but fatigue got the better of him. To quote Julia Cross our 6 times world champion, “Callum has the most impressive talent I’ve seen in our country for a long time.” And at only 18years old he’s got incredible potential.

Mark McGeachie made his European sparring debut in Senior –63kg. The draw was less than kind to him pitting him against Slovenia’s Redzo Ljutic, who went on to win the title.  He took it to him though and listened well to coaching instruction.

Andy O’Hare beat Greece in the first round of –71kg. He went to town on the guy and knows he has to work on his strategy more after running out of steam against Bulgaria’s Oleg Pronevich in the next round.

Jamie Presly took on the Polish, twice world champion, Daniel Dziala in his first fight in –80kg. The first 2 minutes was too close to call, and Daniel had his work cut out for him with Jamie giving him no quarter. The Poles experience won through though and he was the eventual winner of the division.
Jamie’s exceptional performance should give him great encouragement for the future. Another great prospect for Scotland, as at only 19 he has made a great impression at Europe’s highest level.

Michelle Redmond had a bye into the second round, and had a close first 2 minutes with her Romanian opponent. She thought she’d done enough to clinch the last 2, hitting a couple of clean side kicks into the mid section, but the result went against her. In her gut she feels she could have done more and I know she’s got the determination to bounce back from her disappointment.

Julia Cross, -58kg.  Well what can you say? Here’s a girl who less than 3 months ago underwent surgery to tidy up an arthritic hip, and tore the cartilage in an already repaired knee 2 weeks before the competition.
Yet when our Julia sets her mind to something it’ll take a stick of dynamite to shift her off course!
Against the odds she fought her way brilliantly through 4 rounds into the sparring final. Sheer determination and mental strength drove her through. And, as if she didn’t have enough to contend with, she tore her hamstring at the attachment during her 4th round after unleashing a hooking kick to the Ukrainian girls head. 
Meanwhile she won silver in the 4-5th degree patterns, her injuries playing a part in denying her the gold, which went to Belgium.
The sparring final was held in the evening, incorporated into the opening ceremony, and after an afternoon of hanging around, I wouldn’t like to think how sore she was.
She defeated Sweden’s Kristina Jelenic, on the raised centre stage, to an extremely loud and out of tune rendition of “When the Scots go marching in..” which was belted out by 17 extremely proud team mates jumping around in the cheap seats!
6 world titles and now 15 European titles, Scotland has one legendary competitor who may never be rivalled.

Julia’s gold medal presentation                              Our proud competitors

We only had 1 team event on Sunday, the ladies power test. With a tussle for bronze we eventually lost out, and Michelle took home a souvenir in the form of a mangled foot!

All in all one hell of a team! 12 very determined individuals have returned home, each inspired by their experience and I’m sure by Julia’s incredible spirit. You’ll be hard pushed to find a more disciplined bunch with such great future prospects.
The team was a joy to take away, all respectful and great ambassadors for our country.
Congratulations to everyone, roll on 2009!