Budokan Judo Club’s Crowning Glory
Castle Hill’s Budokan Judo Club, which has produced Olympians and Commonwealth Games medallists, honoured their excellent athletes, coaches, and volunteers at its current twenty first Awards Night.
Having been started by the highly-experienced judokas Rob and Kerrye Katz 25 years ago with simply 10 members and two courses per week, the Budokan Judo Club now has more than 200 members and runs nine lessons each week.
Budokan Judo Club Budokan Judo Club’s Crowning Glory
“When we took over the membership in 1999, Kerrye and I tapped into all the experiences that we had as athletes training at totally different clubs all around the world after we have been competing,” Rob explained. “Our goal was to construct a club with a novel culture: one which focussed on a grass-roots entity as a community-based family-oriented judo club whereas also paving the way for prime efficiency and worldwide competitiveness.
“Our imaginative and prescient has all the time been to be recognised in the judo and general communities as the premium judo training centre in Australia. Rather than focussing on results, our teaching tradition instills acknowledgement for participation in every aspect of the game, in taking on challenges and putting in the best efforts in all actions, lessons that assist in all aspects of life.’
Olympians Nathan And Josh Katz Budokan Judo Club’s Crowning Glory Rob mentioned that they succeeded in building depth in each age group. Thanks to a robust mentoring ethic by senior athletes, this has resulted in significant efficiency achievements, he mentioned.
Rob said their biggest achievement in competition is having constant illustration 12 months after 12 months on the World Championship level across all three senior age teams: under-17, under-21, and senior.
“The pinnacle of achievement has been having two Olympic representatives in Athens, adopted by our first two home-grown Olympic representatives in Rio 2016 after which again in Tokyo 2020,” Rob said. The club had been additionally very proud to have won two bronze medals on the 2022 Commonwealth Games, including to their growing international profile.
“We have one athlete currently on track for qualification to Paris 2024 and are additionally proud of our range,” Rob said. “We had two athletes profitable a gold medal and silver medal at the Virtus Asia-Oceania Games, the first time that Budokan has been represented at an international multi-sport competition in the Oceania-Asia region for elite athletes with an intellectual impairment.
“Budokan Judo Club’s membership ranges from 4 to eighty one years from recreation gamers, to interested mother and father to Olympians and every thing in between.”