Recently four of CUJC’s fighters went down to Thetford for the Thetford Four’s competition. After a number of year since a proper individual competitive event, Greg Viney came out of retirement. Up against a pool of 3rd dans, he won his first fight in a blistering 30 seconds with a fake uchimata into kosoto-gake combination. His luck (skill?!) continued in his second fight, which was against a member of the GB masters’ team, when Greg threw and then pinned him with mune-gatame for an ippon. Greg’s final fight was against Richard Blaniss, an old friend of the club. Greg was giving away 30kg to his opponent, who used this to their advantage to dominate the fight, leaving Greg with a well-deserved silver medal and 20 points towards his 3rd dan.

Josh Hunt and Rio Xin-Chen, ending up in the same pool, fought each other in their first fight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rio won quite quickly, throwing for waza-ari and finishing off with jugitame. Josh also lost his second fight, against a very strong 1st kyu who caught him with a tai-otoshi. Thankfully, he upped his game for the last two fights, winning with a rolling strangle and an armbar. This was enough to get him the bronze medal, having tied for points with the 1st kyu who beat him.

Having beaten Josh in his first fight, Rio went on to win all three of his other fights in style with his strong osoto-gari, netting him a well-deserved gold medal.

Suvi Hokkanen also entered, hoping to gain those elusive last 20 points towards her 1st dan. Unfortunately, a minute or so into her first fight her opponent was disqualified for having an unremovable ear piercing. Suvi was only ahead by a yuko by this point, so sadly came away with no points – and even worse, this was the only woman who had entered the competition. It was a bit of adisappointment, but she came away all the more determined to get her points next time!

Overall, all of us that fought came away feeling like they’d achieved something (and hopefully learnt something!) and ready for the next competition.