Josh Katz – European Open Glasgow Scotland 6-7 Oct 18
- Josh departed for Europe on 24th Sept, following the Sydney International, where he trained in Camberley for the Senior European Open (World Cup) on the 7th October in Glasgow, Scotland. His first match was against an awkward German athlete Pachel, who had already beaten Great Britain. GER immediately threw his arm cross-shoulder attacking with Ouchi and Uchi-Mata. Josh controlled this with double lapel gripping but this made attacks more difficult. Just past half-way Josh started to make progress with Kouchi and drop Sode attacks and solid ground-work. More attacks from both took them into Golden Score with no scores or penalties. More defending the grip by Josh, and with just over a minute of GS gone, Josh found an opening for Kouchi-Makikomi scoring Waza-Ari and the win. The Quarter-Final was against Dumontier FRA who had already beaten athletes from Great Britain and Italy. The first two exchanges saw attacks with Kouchi from both players and transition to ground. After just over 1 minute, FRA threw his arm cross-shoulder simultaneously attacking with Osoto and catching Josh for Ippon. The repechage match saw a match against Pisco from Portugal, who had beaten athletes from Spain and The Netherlands in his pool. The first exchange saw an Uchi-Mata-Makikomi attempt from POR after holding a one-sided grip. This was followed by a Kouchi chop to groundwork. Josh then started working back with a good Kata-Guruma and groundwork transition. An Uchi-Mata followed by Sode attack from POR using a pistol grip saw Josh spinning off in defence and conceding a Shido. POR continued cross-gripping without receiving a penalty allowing another Uchi-Mata attack. Josh attacked well in the next couple of exchanges with drop Morote and Kouchi bring POR to his knees and conceding Shido. Golden Score saw POR attack with drop reverse Seoi-Nage and Josh spinning off beautifully to his feet. However, despite any ability to avoid head contact with the mat, the referee ruled that Josh used his head as a defence and he was disqualified. This was very disappointing for Josh but also showed his solid international competitiveness, in particular after a long lay-off from this level of event. Josh will next compete in the Malaga (Spain) Senior European Cup on 20th October followed by some training in Germany before returning to Perth on 9th November for the Oceania Open. We wish him all the best for his upcoming events.