After the Mongolian World Cup, we headed off to World Cups in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. For these competitions I was also joined by fellow JOLS sponsored athlete Carli Renzi. A result in the top 7 in either of these competitions would provide well needed points towards selection for the 2012 Olympics.
In the lead up to Uzbekistan, I felt confident and ready to improve on my 5th in Mongolia. Following the competition in Mongolia, we participated in a 3 day training camp and I was confident this would hold me in good stead for the next competition.
In Uzbekistan I drew the number Kazakhstan player in my division. This was not a good fight for me. I was thrown early and had to play catch up judo. This played into her hands and I was caught on the ground in a strangle. She then went on to finish 3rd.e in good stead. The standard at this camp was high and there were plenty of partners to go around. The training generally consisted of 6 x 5 minute Ne Waza Randori (ground work) followed by 8 x 5 minute standing Randori. There were two sessions a day. As I was heading into another competition my coach did not want me to complete all randori. The theory is to make each randori sharp, hard and intensive, but to give yourself sufficient break and recovery before the next.
Despite feeling well prepared leading into this competition, on reflection I seemed a "little slow of the mark" I was not aggressive or intensive enough from the start. This was an area I wanted to improve upon the following week.
Carli and I taking some time out after the comps
After the competition, Carli and I went to a training camp 45km away from where we were staying. The mat would have had 200 judo players on it and they didnt bother to split the group for groundwork. This meant that each player had about 1 mat each! The situation was ridiculous and the worst of seen for being crowded and dangerous. Again, a lot of good teams were there to train with including Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Slovenia, Switzerland, Brazil and many more.
We then travelled onto Kazakhstan later in the week. I drew a player from Moldova who I was able to "check out" on U tube the night before. She appeared to be a left handed player and we developed a plan to deal with this. Carli drew the same Armenian girl again.
On the day, I started my fight well. The plan was going well and she was penalised and should have been more than once. However for reasons even I'm not too sure, about half way through the fight, I got lazy with my plan and allowed her to grip in a way that was against my plan. Although I felt confident she could not throw me, it did not allow me to display the dominance that I had earlier in the fight. With 13 seconds to go I attempted to throw with uchi mata. She feel to her knees and in following through and pushing her towards her back, I rolled over her and into a hold down...I couldn't do it again if I tried! She went on to beat a well ranked Ukranian and lost to Russia for 3rd.
So that was it for the competitions in that part of the world...and I cant say I'm unhappy about that! Its not really my choice of holiday destination for too many reasons to list.
We got back on the Wednesday and I have on week to prepare before again leaving for the World Cup in Belarus and Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. There are a number of areas that I want to improve upon that should help me get the results I want. I still dont feel as sharp as I did before the knee surgery As of these comps I was 4.5 months post op from a knee reconstruction and I feel its just a matter of time before I get back to how I was playing pre operation.
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