The British team for the 2009 World Championships, the first under new Head Coach Patrick Roux, has been announced.
The strong team, which will compete in Rotterdam from the 26th -30th August.
Karina Bryant takes the +78kg berth. A veteran at this level with four World medals won over the last 10 years, Bryant has recently returned from injury to win two medals, a gold at the British Open and a bronze at last week’s German Open.
Sarah Clark makes her World debut in the -57kg class. Clark, who has competed in two Olympic Games and is a European medallist at -63kg, made the move down to the lighter category following the Beijing and has enjoyed success having won silver at the recent European Championships.
European medallist Winston Gordon, a gold medallist at the British Open earlier this year, is the fifth Beijing Olympian named by Roux.
Alex Farbon, Matt Clempner, Kimberley Renicks, and the youngest member of the team, Ashley McKenzie, will all be making their World Championships debut.
Colin Oates, Sophie Johnstone, Faith Pitman, Sally Conway and Samantha Lowe complete the line up in the -66kg, -52kg, -63kg, -70kg and -78kg weight categories respectively.
Roux, formerly Assistant Technical Director at the French Judo Federation took up his role at British Judo following the Beijing Olympic Games.
Since his arrival he has been central to development of the British Judo Performance Institute, the sport’s new centralised training centre, critical to rebuilding the British system in order for the sport to return to its Olympic medal winning ways.
With his programme focused on the development towards London 2012, Roux said, “I am observing some interesting improvements both at training camps and within competitions. Although the World Championships are always a major milestone event, for us our target is London 2012.”
Commenting on expectations for the team in Rotterdam he said, “We have to wait to see the draw and as we know judo can prove to be unpredictable. However, we have some players who are capable of reaching the final block of fights in Rotterdam and then the possibility to challenge for medals.”
Margaret Hicks, British Judo Performance Director said, “We are still rebuilding our team and centralising our programme following Beijing. This World Championships will be important as a marker, to assess player development and performance levels at this early stage of the Olympic Cycle”.
