JM Judokwai sent a strong team of novice and experienced members to the Wisbech Open Tournament last weekend, with a 100 percent return on trophies it made the day all the more pleasurable for the travelling supporters. The mini brigade led out the team,

JM Judokwai sent a strong team of novice and experienced members to the Wisbech Open Tournament last weekend, with a 100 percent return on trophies it made the day all the more pleasurable for the travelling supporters.

The mini brigade led out the team, with the opening bout of the day going to Tom Fox, who created a great hold-down opportunity to win his first contest with a 10 point margin.

He then gave himself a great chance of the gold medal with another stirring win this time with a Yuko (five point) throw. However he lost the final, but was justly rewarded with a silver medal.

Myles Fisher then came into action, and it was sure from his attitude right from the start that he was not going to be trifled with for in his opening contest he posted every score on the board with great throwing techniques and won convincingly.

In his second bout, he changed tack and went to the ground to win, then changed back in the final bout to throw his opponent for a maximum 10 point score to win the gold medal.

Andrew Shannon, with only a few months in the sport, won one of his three bouts by a hold down moving him into the last bronze medal place in his pool.

Tom Rayman, one of only three playing in his category won the first by a Yuko score, and lost his final match to a hold down winning the silver medal.

Edward Shannon could not keep the amazing performance recorded a few weeks ago, but still managed to get into silver medal position, losing out to a great prospect recently joining the JM Club in the resolute form of Connor Patel who despite some time off the practise mat, still displayed a flawless performance to win a gold medal in his section.

The best display from a JM lad was that of Kristofer Francombe. The recent move to Camborne did not daunt this exciting prospect, and he won all of his four contests, all with Ippon throws, using hip, ankle and shoulder techniques in the process to win the gold medal.

But it was the performance of his sister Sophie that caught the judge's eyes, for coming into bronze medal place of the five entry category; she was giving away a lot of body weight in this division.

Her opening bout saw her dismiss a much bigger opponent with an Ippon Seoi Nage throw for a five point score, and she managed to hold onto the lead to win the contest.

She won the second bout again with the shoulder throw, and in the third major controversy was caused when she was submitted from a strangulation technique that was supposedly banned in this category.

Despite the complaints of the club coach, the decision was upheld and Sophie then had to take to the mat for her final bout which she unfortunately lost consigning her to the bronze medal place.

However, at the latter stages of the competition, the Judges announced that an independent panel had decided that such was the quality of Sophie's throwing techniques against much heavier opponent's, she was awarded "best girl of the day" trophy, which she retains until the same time next year.

"It was an excellent day out for the membership, and we're slowly getting to the maximum membership we want, our waiting list is open but we cannot bring any more new members in until 2007 now" said JM club coach John Massmann.

"Our 21st anniversary celebration coming up is a milestone in any sports club's history, and we plan to celebrate it in style".