JUDO NEW ZEALAND

The Judo New Zealand development team to Hong Kong and Macau produced a 300% improvement on results from the last tour, with 3 Bronze Medals in total.

Lucinda Griffiths WEL WN) achieved a Bronze in the Cadet Women -52kg at the Hong Kong Cup and then repeated the performance at the Macau Cup.

Lucas Munn (WCC NW) also reached the podium with a Bronze in the Cadet Men -90kg at the Macau Cup .

The two events had strong squads in attendance from Top 15 nations Kazakhstan and Mongolia, with other strong entries from Chinese Taipei, Australia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, India, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador and a Korea team at the Hong Kong event.

Its not often Judo is impacted by weather – but the 2nd day of the Hong Kong Cup was cancelled due to a Typhoon, robbing the Junior members of an opportunity to compete, this flowed into the first day of the camp losing the morning session as well with the weather warning not being lifted till late in the day.

Stand-out performances from Lucinda at the Hong Kong event using her Tomoenage to good effect, with a transition to Kansetsu waza late in the match bringing Ippon. Lucas Munn continued the good work in his bronze final to execute a well timed Saesae Tsuri Komi Ashi for Waza-ari early in the match and proceeded to see out the time with some intense exchanges of gripping and movement.

Lucinda was at it again in Macau Cup in the Cadet division taking another bronze medal. Three others contested bronze finals with a notable performance from Lear Morina (UNI AK) who had already won 2 fights by Ippon to get there, coming within 6 inches of completing an Uchimata Sukashi – his opponent just managing to spin out above the ground, giving a waza-ari. Lear ended up going down to a waza-ari and yuko score.