News

Oceania Judo 2009 World Cup
23 Nov 2009

The first Judo World Cup held in the Oceania region under the International Judo Federation’s new World ranking System was held in Samoa on 13 and 14 November. Coming just a few weeks after the tiny nation was devastated by a tsunami, the event was dedicated to the victims of the tragedy, and strongly supported by the sports loving Prime Minister and his government.

Among the 38 strong Australian team were six members of the University of New South Wales club, and they figured prominently in the results, coming home with three medals - gold, silver and bronze.

Returning to competition after taking a break following her Beijing success, Janelle Shepherd easily took gold in the women’s over 78kg category. Kylie Koenig confirmed her top ranking in the 63 category by taking silver behind the Chinese entrant Lin, who recently won the Asian championship. Athens Olympian Sonya Chervonsky, in her first major competition since returning from injury took bronze in the 52kg class, her only loss being to a top-ranked athlete from Europe. Unfortunately young Amy Meyer, new to this level of competition, was unplaced in the 48kg category, preventing a clean sweep of medals for the University girls.

The University men didn’t fare so well, although newcomer Kevin DaSilva fought hard to narrowly miss a bronze medal in the 60kg. But for a somewhat unlucky loss to a New Zealander, Kevin would have been in the final. Clubmate Nikola Pejic da perhaps the unluckiest draw, finding himself facing World bronze medallist Isaev of Russia in his first fight. Nik was unable to match the power and experience of the Russian and was out.

Overall, the Australian team dominated the medal tally, despite the presence of such hard judo nations as Russia, China, Brazil and Canada. The Aussies finished with five gold, six silver and ten bronze medals. The results now place several Australians highly enough in the world Ranking system to be seeded for future events, thus improving their chances of Olympic selection.

The tournament was a great success for the people of Samoa, with their organizing committee delivering an event of a very high standard, and one which impressed visiting IJF officials and overseas teams. Such was the quality of the event that the Oceania Judo Union has awarded it to Samoa for the next three years. The 2010 competition will be an Olympic selection event, and is expected to attract a much larger and stronger field.