The Bath Chronicle Report:

Two Bath Judo club members won their black belts at a national grading held at the Budokwai in London. The Budokwai is the oldest judo club in Europe and has been the centre of excellence for the sport of judo for nearly 100 years.

Craig Hiscott a local Bath professional tennis coach beat all his six opponents who were the same grade as himself and also going for the coveted judo black belt by an ippon score which is the maximum score in judo. Craig won all these contests with very fast skilful throwing techniques. This was a great achievement for Craig who has only been doing judo for two years.

William Gay from Newton St Lowe who has come up through the junior ranks at the club from the age of 8 years and is now 17 beat all his adult opponents also with the maximum score of ippon. He showed a tremendous variation in skills by armlocking one opponent and then getting a submission with a strangulation technique on another opponent before throwing the others with decisive moves to accumulate the wins needed to complete the contest section of the grading. William and Craig then had to demonstrate a variety of throws, strangles, pinning holds and armlocks from the theory section which contains about 80 moves.

Senior coaches Peter Thatcher and Andy Knapp were extremely pleased with the results these two students attained.

The Bath Chronicle Report:

The Easter grading of the British Judo Society was held at the Bath Judo Centre in Larkhall, Bath and over 60 young people were promoted to higher grades. The club has pre junior grades for beginners and the following children were promoted to the Purple and White belt:- Sam Chippet, Jamie Dale, Christopher Donovan, Bruno Foulstone, Ashley French, Orlando Glendenning, Naomi Hansard, Ben Tidswell, Matthew Pearce, Matthew Neilson Cave.

The next group to be promoted were the Purple belts:- Al Rawi Ala’a, Archie Foster, Arthur Foulstone, Laurie Mills, Louis Moore.

The Red belt promotions were Theo Marvin, Jack Mousley, Talia Thomas. Lydia Graham won all her contests to attain a Yellow belt whilst Christopher Ashton, Daniel Graham, James Hearne and Yuui Heya won many contests with excellent throwing and groundwork skills to receive the Orange belt grade.

In the older junior section Ewan Tabram produced many very good competitive techniques to win his Blue belt whilst club mate Elliott Hawtin excelled himself with six maximum point wins against six opponents in a very short time to show the examiners that he was also worth a Blue belt.

Jamie Padkin convinced the examiners that he should be promoted to a junior Brown belt by fighting against senior brown belts who he equalled in skill, strength, speed and technique.

Senior coaches Peter Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher and Andy Knapp were extremely pleased with the results that their students attained.

The Bath Chronicle Report:

Congratulations to Pete for winning the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Unsung Hero Award 2011. David Passmore from BBC Points West visited the judo club on Saturday morning (19/11/11) to film Pete in action teaching the children. Pete knew he had been nominated for the award and was one of the main contenders but the look of suprize on his face at actually being awarded the prize for the whole of the South West was a picture to behold!!!

Pete will now be put forward for the National prize; so we may even see him on the BBC Sport Personality of the Year show on the 22nd December!! Fingers crossed for the next few weeks please.

I'm sure Pete won't mind me thanking, on his behalf, all the kind words of support from the parents present and particularly to Lisa & Ivor, Alex and Felicity for all their hard work in highlighting to the award committee why Pete is such a deserved recipient of this award.