Oceania Champs - Tahiti 12011

The 2011 Oceania Championships were held in Tahiti from the 16-17 April, 2011. As already mentioned this is one of the most important competitions for Australians who hope to gain selection for the 2012 London Olympics.

The team arrived late on the Wednesday night and had a solid training session on the Thursday and Friday before the competition. Men and women seniors and junior/cadets girls competed on the Saturday with the remainder on the Sunday.

In between in was great to relax in the resort pool or the beach that backed onto the resort. The facilities were awesome and my roomie and I somehow managed to snag a jacuzzi on our balcony!!

The Australians competed well with a number of gold medals in the seniors including:
Womens - U/52kg, Womens U/57kg, Womens, U/63kg, Womens, U/78kg and womens O78kg
Mens - U/60kg, U/66kg, U/81kg, U/90kg, U/100kg
The Australians also took out the mens and womens teams events.

Unfortunately there was very litle time to check out this island Paradise and the team flew out on the Monday.

From a personal perspective although I won my division, I was not satisfied with how I fought. However its important to always put things in perspective. 10 days out from the competition I was still unable to do randori after dislocating my finger in the ACT Open in February. You would think that a finger injury is a minor one...and to some degree it is...but when its your main gripping hand in judo...it makes things hard. So from February until the beginning of April I couldnt do randori and things were looking grim.

I was lucky to be referred to a Sports Doctor who specialises in PRP or Platelet Rich Plasma. There is a mountain of information on the net about this but in simple terms its removing your own blood, spinning it in a centrifuge to seperate the platelet rich plasma, then injecting this placelet rich plasma back into the injury. There is evidence that this assists with muscle, ligament and tendon injuries and is approved by WADA (World Anti Doping) I really dont understand the science behind it...but what I can say is that 3 days later my finger was not sore where the ligament was damaged, it bent more and I was able to do randori...it was unbelievable. This photo shows my finger 10 days out from the competition.

So on the bright side, things can only improve from here...a week off during Easter and back into it...theres definately a big year ahead!

...and a big THANKYOU to my coaches at UNSW, Warren and JB for getting me prepared for this one under crappy circumstances and also to JOLS ADIDAS for their continued support.