BUCS Nationals: Judo Review
University of Birmingham Sport’s (UBSport) Judo team took 6 players to the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Nationals on February 21-22, picking up two individual bronze medals in the u73kg men and 078kg women.
On Saturday the 21st, Assen Babachev (3rd year phycology) and George Kyprianou (3rd year SportEx) were up first in the U73 kg high grade men in a group with over 40 competitors. Assen fought hard in his pool but was unlucky and failed to progress. George won all of his fights proceeding into the knockout stages. George fought hard throughout the knockout stages into the quarter finals where he secured the bronze medal.
In the 078kg high grade women’s category Captain Emily Snell (4th year Geography), fought hard to claim the Bronze medal in a tough group including a commonwealth silver medallist.
Annie Smith (4th year French, Spanish and Portuguese), made her debut in the high grades competition this year fighting up a weight group and fought extremely well winning one of the fights in her pool but unfortunately didn’t progress.
Phoebe Fryer (1st year Geography) fought well in her first competition for the university in the u57kg competition, with a tough pool of seasoned athletes but was unable to clinch a medal.
On Sunday, was the women’s team event and the kyu grade competition. Sean Barber (3rd Year Geography and Planning), fought in the men’s u66kg low grades. Fighting well in a large pool he made it through to the knockout stages but unfortunately went out in the repecharge.
The women’s team comprised of Emily Snell, Annie Smith and Phoebe Fryer. The girls came fought well in their pool beating both York and Bangor to come in first, progressing into the semi-finals. The Semi-finals saw Birmingham drawn against eventual winners Nottingham losing 2-1, missing out on a place in the finals. The girls then went on to fight for the bronze medal against Cambridge narrowly missing out in a 2-1 defeat.
The team now look forward to the last team competition of the year in March USIST where thy will meet the teams from BUCS as well as international teams.
