Various judoka from Doryoku Judo Academy took part in the national trials as well as the South African Open Judo Championships.
On February 25, several judoka from the academy attended the Judo National Ranking Event and National Trials, where Ivan Olivier, CJ Schutte, Ruben Cordier, Janu Malherbe, Louis Kleynhans and Kylie van der Merwe qualified to take part in the Commonwealth Championships in Gqeberha. which took place in July.
CJ, Ivan and Janu qualified for Protea Colours and Louis and Kylie qualified for Judo SA Colours, unfortunately, Ruben had to withdraw from the tournament due to an injury.
Ivan represented South Africa in the African Cadet and Junior Judo Championships in Antananarivo in Madagascar in July.
Also in July, seven judoka took part in the SA Open in Gqeberha at the Nelson Mandela University, where in the boys 13 and 14 years, AJ Schutte received first place in the under 66kg weight category and Keegan Marais fourth. For young men 15 – 17 years, Christiaan Luus received fourth place in the under 81kg, while Janu received first place in the same category.
Louis Kleynhans took first place in the 90kg plus category. For the young women 15 – 17 years, Kylie received seventh place in the 70kg plus category, while in the men’s category (21 years and older), CJ received seventh place for under 66kg.
In this tournament, AJ and Keegan qualified to take part in the Commonwealth Judo Championships in Gqeberha, where AJ qualified for Protea Colours and Keegan for Judo SA Colours.
Their coach, sensei Danie Bruwer stated he ‘is very proud with the results of the Doryoku members who represented Joburg Judo [their district] at this prestigious event.’
“We wish our judoka that are participating in the international tournaments good luck and trust that they will come home with a bag full of medals.”
He continued to say, “Our primary school judoka will attend the National Schools Judo Championships in October in Belville and are training very hard to achieve good results at this tournament.”
