Hi

Since getting back from the World Championships in Rio I’ve been having a bit of down time, eating what I want, and trying to relax. It’s tough, because I love being on the mat and feel a bit lost when I don’t have some purpose to my day with training.

I also sustained a couple of little injuries fighting in Rio, so they are keeping me off the mat and mean that I am spending a lot of time on the physio bench. My physio Sandi is great and I’m confident I will be back to full training soon.

I spend the first weekend back home down in Birmingham at the British World Cup event. My team-mates from Edinburgh were competing, so I drove us down and spent the weekend supporting them. The results weren’t great from the British Team, with Craig Fallon’s Gold medal at -60kg the only result. It was hardly surprising that the guys weren’t on top form though, as they had only been back from Rio for 3 days and competing again that quickly is tough both physically and mentally. But I’m sure the results will come.

There was some press interest growing before the Worlds, the highlight for me being a spot on the Chris Evans radio show, and some of the papers have done follow up stories which is something I’m not entirely used to.  But I hope it can increase interest in judo and help us develop a good following with the British public going into the Olympic Games next year. It really is a fantastic, dynamic and explosive sport, and deserves to be better understood by the sporting public.

The rest of the team headed to Rotterdam to the Dutch World Cup. It was a great weekend for the British Team and particularly for my club with James Millar getting silver at -60kg and Matt Purssey (-73kg) and Sarah Clark (-63kg) both picking up bronze medals.

My training partner Iain Feenan achieved a personal best 5th place at -73kg and Sally Conway placed 7th in the -70kg class. All of these results earn the players valuable qualification points and bring them ever closer to the Olympic Games.

I stayed at home and watched the results unfold on the internet. I’m back training around the injuries and most of my sessions are either in the gym or on the rowing machine as these don’t irritate my wrist or foot.

The rowing sessions are gut wrenchingly tough but I get an almost perverse pleasure from pushing myself through the pain and hitting my targets. It always feels horrific at the time but you get a great high once you’re finished and you know you pushed as hard as possible.

Due to my results this year I have been invited to 2 prize money matches in Eastern Europe in early November so I want to be as fit as possible for them. There is never really any prize money in judo competitions so these events are quite different.

The first is in Siberia and is a special event only for 81kg players that has been organised by the Russian 81kg Athens Olympic medallist Dmitri Nossov. The second is a Grand Prix in Armenia with only the top 8 players in the world invited at each weight.

I’m a little nervous about both as they will be so different from the normal competitions we fight in but I am also excited about the prospect of something new and the lure of a little prize money doesn’t hurt either!!

That’s it for now. I'll let you know how the prize fights go soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me, you never know I might need the help!

Euan

Euan is supported by the Scottish Institute of Sport.  To view his profile, click here.