Jasmine is 22 in world ranking
"Even though I didn't win the championships, judo has taught me discipline, self confidence and has built up my self esteem. I have made a goal in life to one day compete in the Olympics," Martin said.
TWENTY-TWO. The result of hard work, determination and perspiration helped place local judo enthusiast, Jasmine Martin, at number 22 in the Cadet World Ranking. Martin competed at the African Judo Union Cadet Championships 2016 which were hosted in Morocco, Casablanca from Thursday, 21 to Saturday, 23 July.
“I trained really hard in preparation for the competition in Morocco. I obviously wanted to win gold but I’m still happy with the silver medals I won. I will work harder for next year’s competition,” said Martin. She competed in the U18 and U21 divisions.
She said while she admired the new environment of a foreign country, she had to make sure that she had minimum distractions. “Morocco is really different, the cultures, food and its difficult to be in a country you don’t know. I challenged myself to quickly adapting to the new environment, to feel at home so that I could focus all my energy on competing. One of my highlights was beating two girls who were favourites. I didn’t even win gold but people came up to me to take pictures with me,” she recalled.
Martin’s coach, Johan Duckworth, said he is proud of her. “We put in a lot of work in the last few weeks leading to the competion. Jasmine did extremely well, among the competitors was a team from our country and she had the best results overall,” he said.
“We had a lot of difficulties in raising funds but we recently had a meeting with a company that makes sport range products for school children and they are now on board. I’m extremely proud of Jasmine and her climb towards being a Judo champion,” said Martin’s father, Warren.
“Even though I didn’t win the championships, judo has taught me discipline, self confidence and has built up my self esteem. I have made a goal in life to one day compete in the Olympics,” Martin said.
