Hey folks I thought it was about time I fill you in on my latest situation.
Well i am sitting in my hotel room in Miami at 5:30 am because as usual I am suffering from a bit of insomnia.
Before coming to Miami I competed last weekend in the NSW Open. It was only 6 days after Oceania and not ideal but considering I am still trying to catch up on points from the 6 months i missed last year I had to compete.
The competition went well, i won my preliminary, quarter final and semi all by ippon after having thrown with wazari already and I felt jaded but Judo was good.
In the final I had my clubmate Ryosuke Miwa. We had fought twice before and gone to decision both times (1 win, 1 loss). This time I came out and threw him for wazari with 1 sided kata guruma after 30 seconds. I kept applying pressure and came close with a few more attacks. For the first time in 3 weeks I felt fast, fluid and comfortable, then he slid under me for drop seio and got me for ippon!
Frustration is an almighty understatement for how I felt. However looking back at my previous 2 competitions where I won gold but didn't feel or fight great I am actually pretty positive this time.
We (australian team) arrived last night in Miami after about 30 hours of travel and settled in to our hotel. Its very, very nice and has everything we need here which makes life easier.
I managed to get internet access and found out that the IJF has updated the World Ranking List and I slot in at NUMBER 33 in the WORLD!
I am hoping that is high enough to be seeded here and make my life a little easier.
My body feels pretty good right now and I am really looking forward to competing at this level again. I feel I have made serious progress in recent months and can't wait to put it all together and notch up some Olympic Qualification Points.
If anyone wants to follow the results they should be available live at ippon.org
Ivo
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
OCEANIA
I haven't posted for a bit because i have been so busy training my butt off and fighting.
I spent a bit over a week at the Australian Institute of Sport preparing for the competition with hours of randori and fitness work.
It was a hell of a grind but came through uninjured.
The competition was small with only 8 in my division but my draw did me no favours because my first fight was against Nic Gravier of New Caledonia who i had fought and lost to twice a few years back. I won't lie i felt horrible, a mix of stale gastrolytes and nerves had my stomach doing all sorts of intestinal pyrotechnics!
Despite that I felt my way into the match and after scoring a wazari and yuko with a sit through and a pick up i was able to lock in a kata-gatame-jime (arm triangle) from half guard and once i applied some pressure and passed to side control was able to coax the tap out.
My semi final was against Allister Leat from New Zealand who had beaten me back in 2004 by a koka in golden score. We have both done a lot since but never crossed paths. He was the man who won the competition in 2007 that led to me not qualifying for Beijing.
he was mighty strong and an extreme leftie (which i hate) and he was able to throw me with a yuko and 2 penalties against me as well in the first half of the fight. Somewhere in the middle i decided that i was not going to lose like this and following the (VERY LOUD) advice coming from my coaches area i began to impose myself more by dominating the grips and pushing the pace of the fight. This worked well as it soon became clear that i was much fresher then my opponent. Going into the final exchnages of the fight i had been able to get 2 penalties on him but was still trailing 2 yuko's to 1. I gave everything and pushed, pulled, attacked and threw everything at him until the referee stopped the fight to penalise my opponent for stalling. I knew this gave me the lead and when i looked at the clock and saw only 6 seconds left i felt like i had gotten out of jail! i was able to survive the last exchange and win the fight.
The final was not contested as my opponent Steven Brown deemed that an arm injury suffered in his preliminary fight was too painful for him to participate in the gold medal match.
I was very disappointed by this since I was very keen for a rematch after our Nationals Final but i guess that will have to wait.
That was it, i had defended my Oceania Title from 2008!
It was a hell of a roller coaster day but thankfully i was able to listen to my coaching advice (thanks Daniel, Brent, Dennis) and had the support of my girlfriend and parents too which gave me all the strength i needed!!!
Now it's time to prepare for the NSW International Open this weekend and then off to Miami for the World Cup and US Open.
I spent a bit over a week at the Australian Institute of Sport preparing for the competition with hours of randori and fitness work.
It was a hell of a grind but came through uninjured.
The competition was small with only 8 in my division but my draw did me no favours because my first fight was against Nic Gravier of New Caledonia who i had fought and lost to twice a few years back. I won't lie i felt horrible, a mix of stale gastrolytes and nerves had my stomach doing all sorts of intestinal pyrotechnics!
Despite that I felt my way into the match and after scoring a wazari and yuko with a sit through and a pick up i was able to lock in a kata-gatame-jime (arm triangle) from half guard and once i applied some pressure and passed to side control was able to coax the tap out.
My semi final was against Allister Leat from New Zealand who had beaten me back in 2004 by a koka in golden score. We have both done a lot since but never crossed paths. He was the man who won the competition in 2007 that led to me not qualifying for Beijing.
he was mighty strong and an extreme leftie (which i hate) and he was able to throw me with a yuko and 2 penalties against me as well in the first half of the fight. Somewhere in the middle i decided that i was not going to lose like this and following the (VERY LOUD) advice coming from my coaches area i began to impose myself more by dominating the grips and pushing the pace of the fight. This worked well as it soon became clear that i was much fresher then my opponent. Going into the final exchnages of the fight i had been able to get 2 penalties on him but was still trailing 2 yuko's to 1. I gave everything and pushed, pulled, attacked and threw everything at him until the referee stopped the fight to penalise my opponent for stalling. I knew this gave me the lead and when i looked at the clock and saw only 6 seconds left i felt like i had gotten out of jail! i was able to survive the last exchange and win the fight.
The final was not contested as my opponent Steven Brown deemed that an arm injury suffered in his preliminary fight was too painful for him to participate in the gold medal match.
I was very disappointed by this since I was very keen for a rematch after our Nationals Final but i guess that will have to wait.
That was it, i had defended my Oceania Title from 2008!
It was a hell of a roller coaster day but thankfully i was able to listen to my coaching advice (thanks Daniel, Brent, Dennis) and had the support of my girlfriend and parents too which gave me all the strength i needed!!!
Now it's time to prepare for the NSW International Open this weekend and then off to Miami for the World Cup and US Open.
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