Report
SOUTH COAST OF ENGLAND SOMBO CHAMPIONSHIPS
28th
September 2003, Littledown Centre, Bournemouth
Nearly 90 entries in this inaugural
event ensured a long but nevertheless exciting and entertaining day’s
wrestling. Teams from places as far afield as East Anglia, Kent and the Midlands
took part alongside a 26-strong team from Normandy in France and a competitor
from Poland. The organisers, Bournemouth Sombo Club and Sombo UK,
were even able to recruit a FIAS international class referee for the occasion,
Minoru Tsutsui from Japan who is currently studying in Serbia, to further
provide international flavour to the tournament.
In the junior categories, the
French teams of Sottevast and Virandeville won the majority of the medals
closely followed by Norfolk and hosts Bournemouth. In the youth events, the
young wrestlers from the Sittingbourne Warriors headed the table with 4 medals.
All 5 gold medallists in this age group were exceptionally good winners of their
respective categories and worthy contenders for the best performance awards won
by Maxim Chatelet (Cherbourg) and Emma Garside (Bournemouth).
For the seniors and masters categories, medals were very evenly spread between the Cage Gym, Sittingbourne Warriors and Bournemouth. Under 74 kilos proved to be the toughest category of the day with youth gold medallist Kieron Daniels surprising the pack with some excellent wins including one over pre–event favourite Ashley Costa. Kieron, 11 – 0 behind, pulled out a stunning arm lock finish to force Ashley’s submission. The final pitted Kieron against the very capable Polish freestyle wrestler Maciek Dudak and after an even start, the Kent youngster found his measure to score the required 12 points from 2 throws and a pin. This performance earned Kieron the award for best Senior performance.
Under 82 kilos also proved to be a
highly competitive group with Roland Newson and Danny Carrott reaching their
second finals of the day having won the Masters and Youth events earlier.
Unfortunately the eagerly anticipated final never materialised as Danny chose to
withdraw in order to accompany father Colin to hospital. Colin had broken his
arm thanks to a bad fall in the latter stages of his Over 90 kilo category
leaving The Cage’s Leigh Till to snatch victory in this class with a
well-executed leg lock over Ipswich’s Craig Sennett. Normal protocol in major
championships where a wrestler defaults for any reason is to award victory to
the opponent. However, given the circumstances, the spirit of sportsmanship
displayed throughout the day by all the competitors and teams and with the
agreement of the organisers and fellow finalist Roland Newson, it was decided to
award a gold medal each to Roland and Danny. Also in this category and worthy of
note was 45-year-old Dave Hatch who seemed to be on the mat every 5 minutes
having kindly offered to fight his bouts close together in order to accommodate
the participation of a fellow competitor who had been called to leave early to
go to work. Dave made light of this handicap earning silver in the Masters and
bronze in the Seniors and was a worthy winner of the award for the best Masters
performance.
Other double gold medallists were
Bournemouth pair Paul Sawyer (Masters and Seniors Under 68 kilos) and
15-year-old Emma Garside (Youth Open and Senior Ladies Under 60 kilos), their
performances greatly contributing to the host club’s win in the overall team
standings.
Bournemouth’s first-ever Sombo
event had proved to be a huge success producing a good spread of medals all
round and some excellent performances by a great many competitors.