Samoa

There goes another Oceania World Cup for another year. Last year I got a 3rd. This year a 5th.
I drew a local from Samoa first round and beat him with a drop seoi nage (shoulder throw) for ippon. He was quite an awkward fighter and I hate fighting those sorts of guys, but I made sure I didn’t make any mistakes and I got the win which was good.
My next round was against world number 11 Kudyakov from Russia. He is a small fighter and looks only about 15 years old. I was keen as fighting someone like him and really wanted to have a good fight against him. We started off and he pretty much threw me within 15 seconds for an ippon. I couldn’t believe it, it was the weirdest technique ever. He threw his right arm over my right arm and tried to standing arm bar me, so I pulled my arm out just a bit (so he missed my elbow) then I squirrel gripped him to see if I could pick him up but he hooked my leg with his leg. Then I thought mmmm I think I better bail out of here because I don’t want to be stuck here with this guy. Then he hooked my other leg with his arm and did a forward roll/flip and I landed on my back.
Ref called ippon and it was all over, the scoreboard people thought it was my throw because it was so weird but yeah it was his and he beat me so easy. I was sooo disappointed; there is nothing worse than losing in the first exchange with a fighter. You never should lose in the first exchange.
Next fight I had was against Da Silva from Australia, I controlled the grips and threw him for a waza ari with a takedown and because he got 3 penalties awarded against him I won the fight.
My fight for 3rd place was against Dikins from Australia. I was very keen to fight but it just didn’t happen. I got thrown early with a waza ari and was chasing ever since, I threw him for a few yukos I think or some that maybe were not scored. I will have to re-watch the fight. In the end with 20secs to go and me chasing he dropped under and threw me for another waza ari to win the fight.
I am very disappointed with how I fought in all of my fights actually and have really sat down and analysed everything I need to do in order to improve. Although I’m upset I am also looking forward to the next few months training, fine tuning and hopefully winning more fights overseas and at home.
Now we have a training camp on. Should be good there are some good players here to train with and I’m excited to train.
For 60kgs the final results were 1st Pessoa Canada 2nd Poristogia PERU 3rd Kudyakov RUS Dikins AUS. My weight division was one of the biggest this trip with about 17 athletes entered.
Fight of the day was probably Pessoas win over the Russian in the semi final, Pessoa was losing with 20-30 seconds to go and he dropped under for a seoi nage and drove it through to win the fight.
66kg was a stacked division with a number of international fighters and they were tough. The only Aussie to place was Ivo dos Santos winning 3 of his 4 fights to win 3rd place. 66kg was a stacked diviskon with alot of depth the end results were 1st Khan Megomedov RUS 2nd Memohdovic CAN 3rd Ivo Dos Santos 3rd Leat NZL