March – June 2024

Max

The other weekend I competed in the Latvia  European cup (17th march). 

This was an enjoyable event, as for a change I had my dad who is my club coach, coaching me for the day instead of my usual GB coaches, which is always a nice moment. (My dad can be seen stood coaching Matside in one of the pictures attached)

I won my first fight comfortably with an armlock early on. 

In my second I was dominating the fight but unfortunately made a mistake and my opponent took that opportunity to get a score on me and I lost the fight. Sadly this was the end of my competition day.

Coming back from injury has proved hard as I am still making small errors as I get back to full competition sharpness, but I have been slowly moving in the right direction and am happy with my progress. 

In other exciting news, I have been given the opportunity to compete at the Kazakhstan Grand Slam in May, which will be my first return to competing at this top level since my back injury in March 2022. A Grand Slam is the top level of event, other than Majors (World & European champs) and I will be up against other athletes chasing the world ranking points to qualify for the 2024 Games. 

April 7th I competed at the Dubrovnik European cup, this event was largely attended, my weight group (-90kg) being the biggest from the weekend, consisting of 47 fighters all battling it out for the gold medal. After a long day of competing, I won 2 fights, but also lost 2 fights, meaning there was no medal for me this time. But my performances were good and there has been a clear line of improvement throughout this year. 

I travelled directly from Dubrovnik to Tata, Hungary, for an Olympic Training Camp (OTC). This was my second OTC for the year, where I trained with top level players for the week. I Proved to myself I am of the ability to beat the top level players, and that I just need to be able to replicate how I fight at training, to fighting in competition where the steaks are higher.

Unfortunately since my last email where I was talking about returning to Grand Slam level in Kazakhstan, I have picked up a training injury. Therefore I have pulled out of this event so I can focus on recovery, however long that may be. I Partially Dislocated my shoulder almost 2 weeks ago, so I am waiting for an MRI to see what damage is done. I will then know more on the process I need to get back on the mat and how long it will take, but I can update you when I know more.