The European Judo Championships in Lisbon at the weekend marked the end of the Olympic Qualification phase for Europe.

In my experience, the Europeans in the year of the Games are always a strange event.

As the final qualifier for the Olympics, they can make or break an Olympic campaign before it even begins.

Also, in a sport such as judo, where the Olympics are the defining competition and everyone thinks in four-year Olympic cycles, this European Championships will mark the end of careers for those who don’t quite make it.

It means that for every moment of elation for players who leap into the final qualification spots, there are equally sad sights of competitors whose competitive careers have finally fizzled out under the spotlights in Portugal.

I must just make mention of Daniel Fernandez of France whose fantastic career came to an end in Lisbon.

It has been an absolute pleasure to watch him compete over the years and I have been lucky enough to practice with him on numerous training camps.

He has a list of major tournament medals that anyone would be proud of, but it is his spirit, attitude and absolute love of the sport that would make him a role model to any judo player.

While the partisan Portuguese crowd cheered one of their players, Fernandez lingered after defeat on his mat and soaked up the final moments on what has become his home over the last 15 years.

As he stepped down from the contest arena for one last time, he smiled, clapped and was greeted with a standing ovation from players, coaches and managers alike who recognised that it was the end of an era for one of the greats of European judo from the last decade.

I for one want to thank him for being an inspiration, and I hope that I can continue to enjoy the same enthusiasm as he obviously has had for the sport.

The British team had high hopes for the event going into day one with former world and European Champion Craig Fallon in at 60kg and Georgina Singleton, Faith Pitman and Colin Oates all still with an outside chance of Olympic qualification, if they could make it to the final of their respective categories.

High hopes turned quickly into disappointment as Pitman, then Fallon, lost.

Oates made it a little further, but was also unable to reach the medal stages.

That left Singleton at -52kg as our only medal chance.

Georgina was fighting with all the focus and urgency you would expect from someone who knew that only gold would secure her a place on the plane to China.

She totally dominated in her first two matches, and was two scores up against Audrey Larizza in the quarter-final when her French opponent pounced on an opportunity in groundwork to steal away the victory.

That ended her Beijing dream, but there was still a final major tournament medal to fight for, and it is a credit to Georgina that she managed to stay mentally strong right to the end.

Eventually she had to settle for a fifth place, losing out in the bronze medal match.

Not the result she would have chosen for her last international event, and I’m sure it will be of no consolation, but it shows that even at the end of her career Georgina was still up there with the best in Europe.



The very best of luck to Georgina in whatever she chooses to do next!

With no medals from the first day, the pressure was on the middleweights to produce on day two.

At all four weights Britain was represented by a player from The Edinburgh Club, which we hoped would mean that our coach, Billy Cusack, would be a busy man all day.

Sarah Clark and myself had already done enough to secure GB Olympic spots at -63kg and -81kg, with Sally Conway and Matt Purssey very much still in the race for qualification at -70kg and -73kg.

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep Billy busy long as a tightly fought match with Mikalai Barkouski went the way of the Belarussian by two passivity penalties to one.

Barkouski went on to win bronze, viciously dispatching his opponents in his other victories during the day.

He won all his other fights by ippon, but there is no comfort in knowing that I took him all the way to the wire.

A loss is a loss, and I know that I am capable of beating him.

I am very difficult to beat, but I am also very aware that I can be accused of being 'too safe' at times.



It is a quality that has won me many fights, but is something I must be aware of, and work on, to give myself the maximum chance of success in Beijing.

Sally also lost in the first round and is obviously devastated to come so close to an Olympic Games but miss out.

At 21, she is one of our best prospects for the 2012 Games though, and could conceivably go on for another three Olympic cycles!

Matt produced some of the best judo of his season.

For the first time all year he came into the event completely injury and illness free, and it showed.

His loss to eventual winner Van Tichelt of Belgium was as narrow as it gets and showed the tiny margins between victory and defeat in judo.



Like Georgina, this heralded the end of an era for Matt, however, unlike Georgina, it is not the end of his competitive career.

Rather he is saying goodbye to his -73kg weight category and a spell of dieting and weight control that he will be happy to be rid of.

Enjoy curry Monday buddy! You deserve it more than anyone.

Clarky was again in and around the medals, something I have come to expect from one of the most consistent players of recent GB judo history.

But she will be bitterly disappointed to have lost her bronze medal match, and even more so to have lost her semi-final to her biggest adversary, Lucie Decosse of France.

Decosse was once again in electrifying form and looked almost nonchalant as she won all of her fights with the maximum ippon score.

Not only is she once again European -63kg champion but she can, in my opinion, regard herself as the best female player in Europe in any division.

The last day produced more heartache for the GB team as Peter Cousins and Sarah Adlington both came so close to medals, but also had to settle for fifth place.

Peter once again showed he is a big tournament player and bulldozed his way to a medal fight, only to be denied by Berla of Germany.

It was a fight that Peter dominated, but was caught out by the German's solitary meaningful attack.

Big Sarah was fighting in her first Senior Europeans, replacing the injured Karina Bryant at the last minute.



She also lost out to a German for bronze, but during the day produced the best judo of her career, at the biggest competition of her life to date.

Fifth place and a great sign for the future. Well done Big Yin!

Winston Gordon was our only other player, but his day at -90kg was ended courtesy of some very generous home crowd support for his Portuguese opponent.

Winnie had looked strong and was the only player to have troubled the eventual winner, Mark Huizinga, of The Netherlands.

So, the Championships ended with four fifth places but no medals for the British team.

It is the first time a British team has returned from a European Championships empty handed in the sport's history.

It is undoubtedly a gutting feeling and I’m sure there will be people out there that want an explanation.

So what explanation can I give?

There are those that have said that the pre-qualified players were using it as a training event, and that maybe it was not so important to them.

I cannot speak for the rest of the team, but for me personally this doesn’t ring true.

I go into every event striving for gold and every time it is less than that, it stings, never more so than at a major championship.

Others will point to the fact that the qualification season process has taken its toll on those not automatically qualified, and that these Championships were one fight too far.

This is certainly true, but I know that none of the players would want to use that as an excuse.



What I do know is that this is judo, a strong sport across the whole of Europe, where no-one is invincible and certainly nobody has a divine right to win.

It is part of what makes it such an exciting sport.

I once had a t-shirt that said “if you want a guarantee… buy a washing machine!” There are definitely no guarantees in judo.

Yes, we underperformed.

Yes, we are disappointed.

All I can say with certainty is that when people look back on the history of British Judo, they will not judge 2008 on the European Championships.

We will be judged on what happens on the mat in Beijing in August.

Can we do it? My answer is yes.

Every one of the seven players who will make the trip to China is capable of winnig a medal, capable even of winning gold.

Being capable is, however, no guarantee. We will work our hardest to get there.

Only time will tell if we can succeed.