Well done to everyone who attended this competition. There were certainly a few surprises, but the level of play was very satisfying. Some strong new faces coming through into the medal rounds. Here are the medal winners :

Gold to Liam, Alex, Connor, Drew, Paul and Meghan.

Silver to Josh, Tim, Liam, Paul, Drew, Sean, Ash, Ryan, Dante, Heather and Charlotte.

Bronze winners were Tim, Jared, Grant, Nicolas and Pit (2) 

Well done everyone, and a special word of congrats to the parents who give up so much f their free time to support their children - YOU are the reason for our success. Terrific job done by Ryan, Vinay, Anton, Drew, Paul, Liam and Peter at the score boards and refereeing!!!

EAST COAST CHAMPIONSHIPS - NAPIER              15/06/2008

Emma Rouse stepped up to the plate and won her first gold medal in New Zealand. And she got greedy by grabbing another gold and a silver as well. Drew also won gold in his category, and followed it up with a silver in the Opens. Sam Denize surprised no-one by walking away with his gold medal as well.

Anton and Samuel both won bronze medals in their respective categories. Chris was acting coach with the juniors, and he clearly is worth every cent he gets paid to do the job. Well done to all.

AUCKLAND INTERNATIONAL OPEN RESULTS    04/05/2008

We are on 22 medals after day 1 of this elite competition on the New Zealand competition calendar. Here are brief, unofficial results of day 1 :

Gold medalllists : Ash, Jade, Ullrich, How-Shin, Hannah, Natasha (2), Vinay and Jessica

Silver : Grant, Scott, Hannah, Katherine, Alex, Jessica, Artiom, Marco, Amber and Emma

Bronze : Scott, Ryan and Jessica

Let us wait and see what Day 2 will bring ...... AND THIS IS WHAT DAY 2 BROUGHT ......

Artiom - Bronze, Hannah - 1 gold and 1 silver, Justine - a complete set of gold, silver and bronze, Natasha - double bronze, Calum - double gold and a bronze, Moira - 4 x gold.

Total medals : 37 (17 gold, 12 silver, 8 bronze)

And to cap it all, Calum got awarded his black belt.

Judokwai Results                                                        14/04/2008

Congratulations to our new crop of stars who had an excellent event on Sunday 13 April. Some familiar faces also appear in the winners circle, as it was used as a hit-out for bigger things to come.

A total of 10 Gold medals, 12 silver medals and 6 bronze medals were won. Here are the names :

Gold : Sean Heyns, Vanya Burduk, Louis Aplanalp, Scott Vriens, Tim Naylor, Sylvia Amor, Merike Van Rensburg, Cannon Cochran, Marco Nienaber and Stuart Reddaway

Silver : Dominic Bigsby, Jarred Keen, Jack Cranston, Antonio Pena, Alex Towers, Grant Heyns, Heather Brooks, Ben Kolodziej, Courtney Bassett (2), Rose Naylor and Lewis Thompson-Milne.

Bronze : Tracy De Vaal, Kevin Ashizumi-Munn, Evan Stidwell, Ash Edwards, Ryan McCullough and Connor McCullough.

Well done to everyone!!!!!

Waikato Results                                                            07/04/2008

A very average start to the competition season for our players. Despite many A-team players being absent from the weekends' competition in Tauranga, there was still a reasonable medal haul. The weaknesses have been spotted, the ego's tempered, and now the constructive work can start. Total medal haul : 11 gold (8 of them won by the girls), 9 silvers and 10 bronze.

Gold medallists were Rose, Katherine, Jade, Jessica, Merike, Natasha, Amber, Moira, Ryan and Calum (2).

Silver went to Heather, Sylvia, Hannah, Tash (3), Alex, Merike and Marco.

Bronze to Drew (2), Cameron, Ash, Jud, Sylvia, Anton, Tash, Amber and Artiom.

Fantastic Results in Christchurch                                25/3/08

What more is there to say?????? Three Oceania titles, one silver medal and three bronze medals - that is what we came back with from the Oceania Championships in Christchurch over the Easter weekend.

Team Nippon retained the two junior titles we won in 2006, with Moira and Hannah completing the double. Moira went one better by winning the combined junior and senior Open weight title as well. Moira also added a silver in the senior category to her collection.

Justin, Artiom and Justine won bronze medals in their categories. This was a truly remarkable performance on this level. But, then again, that is what these athletes have been working for, and the results show committment and dedication.

Although Natasha missed out on the medals, she redeemed herself by combining with Justine and doing an excellent kata, competing on level terms with 4th and 5th dan black belts. Very, very pleasing to see.

To cap it all, Deb got an upgarde to the next level of refereeing as well, becoming a referee with an international accreditation.

AUSSIE MEDALS FOR TEAM NIPPON                          12/1/08

After spending two weeks training in Taipei, our team joined forces with a few players from home, and combined well to take a lot of medals off the Aussies in the Annual ACT Open championships in Canberra. Training in Taiwan, were Natasha, Moira, Justin, Artiom, Vinay and Nick. They were fantastically managed by Graeme and Johan (of course). They were joined in Canberra by Alex, Justine and Hannah. Nick was the only one who could not join us in Canberra.

Gold medallsists were Justin (snr), Moira (jnr and senior), Alex (u 16), Hannah (u 16 and jnr), Natasha won silver (jnr), and Justine (jnr), Vinay (u 16) and Artiom (jnr and snr) won bronze medals.

NATIONAL HONOURS FOR OUR ATHLETES               10/1/08

Once again, Team Nippon is well represented in the National Teams announced recently. We have 6 members who will participate in the Oceania Championships in March in Christchurch. They are : Artiom, Justin, Hannah, Justine, Natasha and Moira. Nick will probably participate as well, but as part of the Canterbury team.

We will also be well represented in the NZ Youth Team, touring through the North Auckland region in May, doing judo demonstrations at schools in the area. Ryan, Alex, Hannah, Ullrich and Katherine. Congratulations, and good luck to everyone.

WINNERS OF THE NIPPON 2007 AWARDS                  5/12/2007

Here are the 2007 award winners, announced on Thursday 13 December at prize giving :

2007 Award Winners

Player of the Year

Moira De Villiers

Female player of the Year

Moira De Villiers

Male player of the Year

Justin Mitchell

Hibiscus Coast Player of the Year

Vinay Reddy

Under 14 Player of the Year

Hannah Downing; Alex Bishop

Under 11 Player of the Year

 Annezka Joubert

Best Individual Performance – Female

Moira De Villiers (OJU

Best Individual Performance – Male

Justin Mitchell (Nats)

Most Scientific Player

Natasha Downing

Most Improved Player

Ryan Jeffery

Best Spirit Award

Stuart Reddaway

Special Award

 Katherine Marshall

 Congratulations to each and everyone - you are all champions!!!!!

NIPPON CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS                        2/12/07

Thank you to everyone who attende dour club championships. And a MAJOR thank you to everyoe who helped to make this a roaring success. We had 210 entries and everyone had a fair go. Congratulations to the winners. We had representation from the following clubs : Nippon Judo Schools (NJS), Bays City Judo (BCJ), Carmell College (CMC), Rosmini College (RMC), Judokwai North Harbour (JNH), University (UNI), Howick (HOW), Western Judo Academy (WJA), Metro Judo Club (MET), Henkada (HEN), Tauranga (TAU), New Plymouth (NPL) and Te Awamutu (TAM).

CATEGORY	GOLD	SILVER	BRONZE
Jnr Boys White Belts 22 Kg	George Martin BCJ	Dominic Bigsby NJS
Jnr Boys White Belts 26 Kg	Nasseh McLachlan MET	Isaac Richards WJA	Liam Ryan HOW / Aaron Killeen HOW
Jnr Boys White Belts 30 Kg	Oliver Leonard NJS	Evan Stidwell NJS	Connor Du Plessis NJS / Michael Harris HOW
Jnr Boys White Belts 32 Kg	Ryan Killeen HOW	Noah Purchase HOW	Daniel Young NJS / Joshua McHenry NJS
Jnr Boys White Belts 36 Kg	Pasha Kalinin HOW	Jayden Fairest-McKane WJA	Connor Hutchison NJS
Jnr Boys White Belts 40 Kg	Dante Mirabito NJS	Tian Bount HOW	Connor Suttan HOW / Brady Gould NJS
Jnr Boys White Belts 40 Kg	Sam Harvey HOW	Peter Van Nieukoop HOW	Alex Kalachov NJS
Jnr Girls 30 Kg	Rose Naylor NJS	Madeleine Hoffmann NJS	Keela Baty NJS
Jnr Girls 33 Kg	Katie Hayward HOW	Miharu Ishikawa HOW	Aimee Hodges BCJ
Jnr Girls 33 Kg	Annezka Joubert NJS	Tyla Skellon NJS	Erin Makepeace NJS / Courtney Bassett NJS
Jnr Boys 26 Kg	Tyler Deverson MET	Matthew Bell BCJ	Quenton Lynch JNH
Jnr Boys 29 Kg	Pit Vorster NJS	Felix Rolls MET	Mitchell Deverson MET / Jesse Buskin NJS
Jnr Boys 36 Kg	Aeden Kapi NJS	Matthew Skinner HOW	Alex Towers NJS / Logan Drummond WJA
Jnr Boys 33 Kg	Brahm Richards WJA	Sean Crombie NJS	Reuben Goh WJA / Jack Bertram MET
Jnr Boys 40 Kg	Sebastian Wieczorek WJA	Jason Watling NJS	Scott Vriens NJS
Jnr Boys 40 Kg	Connor Bellet UNI	David Kennedy BCJ	Mitchell Neville NJS / James Mitchell JNH
Snr Girls 40 Kg	Sunniva Nasmith TAM	Kate Poole NJS	Shaye Courtney HOW
Snr Girls 45 Kg	Sylvia Amor NJS	Mica Arroyo CMC	Patty Guerreno CMC
Snr Girls 50 Kg	Leanne Goh WJA	Shawnee Felton MET	Kavindri Da Silva HOW
Snr Girls 55 Kg	Corinne Hubble NJS	Merike Van Rensburg NJS
Snr Girls 55 Kg	Kelly Marshall-Smith NPL	Ruth McKenna CMC	Paige Storey CMC
Snr Boys 35 Kg	Liam Hollinger NJS	Mitchell Thomas TAU	Josh Young NJS
Snr Boys 40 Kg	Anton Charopov HOW	Hamish Field HOW	Timothy McIver HOW / Jordan Godfrey WJA
Snr Boys 45 Kg	Andrew Jenkins JNH	Peter Vorster NJS	Alyosha Yashin HOW / Tim Naylor NJS
Snr Boys 50 Kg	Matthew Tarrant TAM	Jared Carrington BCJ
Snr Boys 50 Kg	Joey Kawe HEN	Drew Hall NJS	Sam Hale NJS / Keagan Licence BCJ
Int Girls Open	Christina Reddaway NJS	Amber Holyoake NJS	Ashleigh Ormond MET / Susanna Pahulu CMC
Int Boys Open	Matthew Burton NPL	Kevin Dalton RMC	Luke Kirsten MET
Kurash Girls 45 Kg	Katherine Marshall NJS	Sunniva Nasmith TAM	Kate Poole NJS
Kurash Girls 50 Kg	Hannah Downing NJS	Shawnee Felton MET	Leanne Goh WJA
Kurash Girls 55 Kg	Natasha Downing NJS	Kelly Marshall-Smith NPL	Corinne Hubble NJS
Kurash Girls 55 Kg	Moira De Villiers NJS	Christina Reddaway NJS	Amber Holyoake NJS
Kurash Boys 45 Kg	Samuel Skellon NJS	Alyosha Yashin HOW	Tim Naylor NJS / Ullrich Boshoff NJS
Kurash Boys 50 Kg	Vinay Reddy NJS	How-Shin Tsao NJS	Thomas Currie NJS / Drew Hall / NJS
Kurash Boys 50 Kg	Lee Bronkhorst MET	Cieran Marshall NJS	Matthew Burton NPL / Alex Bishop NJS
Kata Category 1	Justine / Natasha	Alex / Vinay	Moira / Cieran and Vinay / Alex
Kata Category 2	How-Shin / Thomas	Drew / Tim	Christina / Stuart and Corinne / Katherine
Kata Category 3	Hannah / Natasha	Hannah / Katherine	Drew / Samuel and Moira / Nigel

WESTERN JUDO ACADEMY RESULTS                      10/11/07

Well done to all the medal winners at the Western Competition. A big thank you to Deb who had to fly solo with the coaching, and some refereeing as well. The gold medallists were Hannah (2), Kate, Vinay and Keela. Silver went to Alex Towers, Alex Bishop, Niko, Christian, Peter and Courtney. Broze medallsists were Pit, Ryan, Oliver, Sylvia, Ilya, Jade, Alex Baty and Alex Kalatchov.

NZ NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS                                   26/10/07

More of the same ...... as our atletes excelled at the 2007 Nationals. With a smaller delegation as in 2006, we almost matched the 2006 record performance. In the final analysis, we fell short of our 2006 record by one gold medal and three medals overall.

We won a total of 37 medals : 18 golds, 12 silvers and 7 bronze medals. This was a fine effort by our athletes, paying back the efforts, money and sweat the parents and coaches have contributed over the past year.

Gold medallists and 2007 NZ National Champions, are : Moira (5 titles), Natasha (3 titles), Justine and Annezka (2 titles), How-Shin, Justin, Alex, Sean, Hannah and Katherine. Congrats to first time national champions Katherine, Annezka and Sean. Well done to Moira, Justine, Natasha, Justin, Hannah and Alex for retaining their titles, and a special word of congratulations to How-Shin for re-claiming a national title.

Silver medallists were Vinay (for the 5th time in a row), Ullrich, Ryan, Alex, Rose, Natasha (2), Justine, Tyla (2), Hannah and Cieran.

Bronze went to Liam, Sean, Jason (2), Ryan, Cieran and Samuel.

Deb Downing was awarded the trophy for the most improved referee, Alex got the trophy for most points in the boys division, as did Moira in the girls division, and Natasha got the trophy for Best Sportsmanship.