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Author: Tatjana Flade
Ireland is working hard to grow the sport of judo in the country. Ireland is represented with two athletes at the European Judo Championships Seniors in Podgorica. Joshua Green competed in the -73kg Thursday and Bearach Gleeson will be on the mat Friday in the -90kg.
“Judo is not a particularly big sport in Ireland, but we are trying to develop it more and more,” team manager Benjamin Fletcher said. The federation is working with the clubs and the four provinces in Ireland. “We have specific coaches to work in those provinces and to try and basically increase the number of people doing judo but then also the level of the people in Ireland as well.”
Judo has a long history in the country. “We have a lot of clubs all over the country. There’s some very old historic clubs all through the country,” Fletcher noted. The more people are practicing judo, the more interest is generated and eventually there will be more results at the higher level. “So it helps everybody that there’s more people doing judo in Ireland and that’s something that we would really hope to try and increase,” Fletcher, a double Olympian, explained. “More people doing it, better results, more coaches involved, I think that’s the way we can hopefully improve the performance in judo in Ireland.”
Joshua Green lost his first-round bout, which was disappointing. “He was sticking to the plan, the plan was going well, but unfortunately he just got caught with a good piece of ne-waza and got held down,” Fletcher said. “It’s frustrating for everybody but obviously more frustrating for him than anybody. It’s a fight that I think he could have won, but he didn’t. You just have to analyse it a little bit and then move forward.”
To get judo to the next level in Ireland, it is important to increase the number of clubs and athletes. “Maybe do more in schools and then from schools to clubs, clubs to the regions and then the regions to the national team,” Fletcher, pointed out. However, it is not such an easy task to get attention for judo. “In Ireland there’s a lot of sports which are more prevalent, football, rugby, Gaelic sports as well which are obviously very well followed in Ireland,” Fletcher noted. “But there is a big history of fighting sports and boxing and MMA. There’s a big amount of mixed martial arts people who compete from Ireland so I think there is a chance to sort of get more people involved in judo. It’s a very sporty country. We love sport in Ireland.”
Fletcher’s own example is for sure helpful as well. He represented Ireland at the 2020 Olympic Games. “Hopefully, it shows that there’s a pathway and there’s people involved in Irish judo that understand what it takes to get to an Olympic Games and that there’s people who have been there, who have done it before. It shows them that people can come from Ireland and compete at the Olympic Games.”
Fletcher now passes on his knowledge as a coach in the Irish system as an assistant to head coach Nathan Burns and is coaching Green and Gleeson at their club regularly. “I have a lot of hope for the future and there is a lot of hope that maybe we can be more prevalent at the world stage and bring some more athletes through. Hopefully we can have a positive impact on Ireland and on judo,” Fletcher concluded.
Author: EJU Media