Judo Success for East Grinstead Brother and Sister

Brother and sister, James and Elizabeth Draper, rounded off a busy winter judo schedule with an impressive set of medals.

13 year old Imberhorne student Elizabeth Draper started with a winning performance at the Welsh Open in Cardiff on the 18th January. Fighting at this two-day event, Elizabeth overcame high quality opposition to win a place on the bronze medal rostrum, receiving her prize from judo legend and former World and European Champion Neil Adams.

The success continued in February with the North West Age Banded Championships. This competition, one of the top four National events in the judo calendar, was held at St. Helens near Liverpool and attracted over 300 of the UK's top under 20 year old athletes.

Elizabeth continued her impressive run of results by winning a bronze medal in the under 52kg event for 12 and 13 year olds. Here she started with a strong performance against current British Silver Medalist Tal Gardiner from Scotland. Although ahead for the majority of the contest with a large score, she fell foul of a contentious refereeing decision and was ultimately denied a win. Undaunted by this, she proceeded to dispatch her remaining opponents with maximum scores to seize another bronze medal.

16 year old James Draper, also an Imberhorne student, notched up his best performance of the season so far. Fighting in the ultra-competitive and extremely fast under 55kg light-weight group for 16 to 19 year olds, he was facing some very difficult opposition. He started his day with a number of commanding full score wins, all finished in very quick fashion. Then after losing a tight re-match with current British Champion, Adam Conroy, he eventually had to settle for bronze medal. James commented afterwards that he was very happy with a bronze from such a tough group and with his recent 5th place at the GB under 20 trials, this result has given him the best ever start to a competitive year.

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