I am back from Paris and to continue my great week, as I was named ASDA Athlete of the month for November, I travelled to Paris on Friday and competed on Sunday and achieved one of the major targets, I had set for the year which was to have a podium finish at an “A” Class (a World/European ranking event).

Due to the Olympic Weight categories used in the French Open I had to fight at -55Kg instead of -51Kg and had a strong international field of 46 players to compete against. I had four very hard fights and lost in the semi-final against Croatia to earn my first International Overseas “A” Class podium finish and a Bronze medal, my result of the year.

Master Peter Adamson from Doncaster coached me, so a big thanks to Master Peter and I travelled with my Chi team mate Elliot Coatsworth. Chi had our own One 2 One competition so my Chi coaches were all coaching at Spennymoor.

My sister and brother fought at the Chi One 2 One at Spennymoor Leisure centre and Simone won her fight and Scott lost a close fight 11-10 against a student from Bristol University.

The roads were bad when we travelled from Spennymoor to Newcastle airport but we got there easy. On the way back from Paris the airplane was over an hour late taking off and it took over two hours to drive from the airport back to Spennymoor.

We are travelling to Stansted today to fly to Stuttgart on Friday to compete in the Park Pokal competition. My brother Scott is coming with us and we are hoping we get to the airport ok and that the plane will take off.

This is my last competition of the year and we are planning to meet up with lots of people and end the year on a high with strong performances in Germany. I will be back down in weight and playing at -51Kg.

Next week on Saturday (11th Dec) we have the Chi Christmas Party and presentation night, were seven of the Chi Taekwondo fight team are selected to compete against a GB select team. This is normally a good night and the majority of people from Chi meet up. The Chi demo team will also be performing on the night and the food will be provided by the Kilnrooms (I will not be working lol).

I am planning to have a couple of days off over the Christmas weekend, but with a busy 2011 planned I will be training as normal over the Christmas holidays and will be back in full time training by the 27th December preparing for the US Open.

So a big thanks ASDA for naming me Athlere of the month and I am just so pleased to win the -55Kg Bronze in my first year as a junior in the French Open.

Jamie

I am back from Paris and to continue my great week, as I was named ASDA Athlete of the month for November, I travelled to Paris on Friday and competed on Sunday and achieved one of the major targets, I had set for the year which was to have a podium finish at an “A” Class (a World/European ranking event).

Due to the Olympic Weight categories used in the French Open I had to fight at -55Kg instead of -51Kg and had a strong international field of 46 players to compete against. I had four very hard fights and lost in the semi-final against Croatia to earn my first International Overseas “A” Class podium finish and a Bronze medal, my result of the year.

Master Peter Adamson from Doncaster coached me, so a big thanks to Master Peter and I travelled with my Chi team mate Elliot Coatsworth. Chi had our own One 2 One competition so my Chi coaches were all coaching at Spennymoor.

My sister and brother fought at the Chi One 2 One at Spennymoor Leisure centre and Simone won her fight and Scott lost a close fight 11-10 against a student from Bristol University.

The roads were bad when we travelled from Spennymoor to Newcastle airport but we got there easy. On the way back from Paris the airplane was over an hour late taking off and it took over two hours to drive from the airport back to Spennymoor.

We are travelling to Stansted today to fly to Stuttgart on Friday to compete in the Park Pokal competition. My brother Scott is coming with us and we are hoping we get to the airport ok and that the plane will take off.

This is my last competition of the year and we are planning to meet up with lots of people and end the year on a high with strong performances in Germany. I will be back down in weight and playing at -51Kg.

Next week on Saturday (11th Dec) we have the Chi Christmas Party and presentation night, were seven of the Chi Taekwondo fight team are selected to compete against a GB select team. This is normally a good night and the majority of people from Chi meet up. The Chi demo team will also be performing on the night and the food will be provided by the Kilnrooms (I will not be working lol).

I am planning to have a couple of days off over the Christmas weekend, but with a busy 2011 planned I will be training as normal over the Christmas holidays and will be back in full time training by the 27th December preparing for the US Open.

So a big thanks ASDA for naming me Athlere of the month and I am just so pleased to win the -55Kg Bronze in my first year as a junior in the French Open.

Jamie

I am back from Paris and to continue my great week, as I was named ASDA Athlete of the month for November, I travelled to Paris on Friday and competed on Sunday and achieved one of the major targets, I had set for the year which was to have a podium finish at an “A” Class (a World/European ranking event).

Due to the Olympic Weight categories used in the French Open I had to fight at -55Kg instead of -51Kg and had a strong international field of 46 players to compete against. I had four very hard fights and lost in the semi-final against Croatia to earn my first International Overseas “A” Class podium finish and a Bronze medal, my result of the year.

Master Peter Adamson from Doncaster coached me, so a big thanks to Master Peter and I travelled with my Chi team mate Elliot Coatsworth. Chi had our own One 2 One competition so my Chi coaches were all coaching at Spennymoor.

My sister and brother fought at the Chi One 2 One at Spennymoor Leisure centre and Simone won her fight and Scott lost a close fight 11-10 against a student from Bristol University.

The roads were bad when we travelled from Spennymoor to Newcastle airport but we got there easy. On the way back from Paris the airplane was over an hour late taking off and it took over two hours to drive from the airport back to Spennymoor.

We are travelling to Stansted today to fly to Stuttgart on Friday to compete in the Park Pokal competition. My brother Scott is coming with us and we are hoping we get to the airport ok and that the plane will take off.

This is my last competition of the year and we are planning to meet up with lots of people and end the year on a high with strong performances in Germany. I will be back down in weight and playing at -51Kg.

Next week on Saturday (11th Dec) we have the Chi Christmas Party and presentation night, were seven of the Chi Taekwondo fight team are selected to compete against a GB select team. This is normally a good night and the majority of people from Chi meet up. The Chi demo team will also be performing on the night and the food will be provided by the Kilnrooms (I will not be working lol).

I am planning to have a couple of days off over the Christmas weekend, but with a busy 2011 planned I will be training as normal over the Christmas holidays and will be back in full time training by the 27th December preparing for the US Open.

So a big thanks ASDA for naming me Athlere of the month and I am just so pleased to win the -55Kg Bronze in my first year as a junior in the French Open.

Jamie

Training was cancelled on Monday night due to the weather so I had a night off. We had club fight training at Spennymoor with Master Russell on Tuesday.

Last night Wednesday there was only myself at the training class as Scott was at work and Simone was at the pantomime rehearsal (she is in the pantomime again this year at Darlington Civic Theatre with David Essex) and nobody but Master Russell turned up. So the class was cancelled I went home and did some stretches.

We are travelling to Stansted today to fly to Stuttgart on Friday to compete in the Park Pokal competition. My brother Scott is coming with us and we are hoping we get to the airport ok and that the plane will take off.

This is my last competition of the year and we are planning to meet up with lots of people and end the year on a high with strong performances in Germany. I will be back down in weight and playing at -51Kg. Master Peter Adamson will be coaching me again as this is not an event Chi attend.

Next week on Saturday (11th Dec) we have the Chi Christmas Party and presentation night, were seven of the Chi Taekwondo fight team are selected to compete against a GB select team. This is normally a good night and the majority of people from Chi meet up. The Chi demo team will also be performing on the night and the food will be provided by the Kilnrooms (I will not be working lol). Details of the Chi XMAS party can be found on the Chi website

I am planning to have a couple of days off over the Christmas weekend, but with a busy 2011 planned, I will be training as normal over the Christmas holidays and will be back in full time training by the 27th December preparing for the US Open.

Jamie

I am back from Stuttgart and the last competition of 2010 for me. We travelled to Standsted on Thursday evening for our flight to Germany. My brother Scott was also taking part and we were meeting Master Peter Adamson of Scorpions Doncaster at the hotel. Both Scott and me weighed in OK, Scott at -63Kg and me at -51Kg. Scott was fighting on Saturday and I was fighting on Sunday.

On Saturday Scott fought well and lost in the semi-final to the German player who went on to win the competition and earned a bronze medal winning two fights.

Master Peter also had Emily Watson from Scorpions to coach as Emily is looking to qualify for the Great Britain Cadet team. Emily fought really well, so eight hours after the competition started and lost the final to a girl from Finland. Well done Emily great result mate.
So to Sunday and my final competition of the year, I had a Greek in the first round who we did not know anything about. It was a messy fight and the Greek was a dirty player who punched me in the face twice but I won the fight 11-4 and into the second round. The second round was against a German who was tall and had an awkward style who I think medalled in the Dutch this year. After a close fight I won 7-6 and was into the semi-final.

The semi-final opponent was a German who we did not know much about and I won 11-10 although the scoring was bit off with the German scoring a head shot which didn’t touch me. So to final against a good and experienced player from Denmark, I had seen him play a couple of times but never played against him. The fight was a very tight fight and we ended the first round 0-0. The second round was similar and ended the round 2-1 down. So the last round of the year for gold medal in an International Open, I started well and got the score back to 2-2. The opponent hit me with a headshot and I hit a counter so I was 3-5 down with 15 seconds to go, I made a mistake and fell to the floor and the ref give me a half point deduction so I really had my work cut out. With 9 seconds to go I hit the Dane with a headshot of my own to go 6-5 in front, but the judges did not score so I was still 3-5 down. Master Peter played the protest card and after review the corner judges agreed I had scored a headshot so I was 6-5 ahead, the clock had ran down and I thought I had won. The Danish coach played his protest card as the referee had not stopped the clock so they put 15 seconds back on. So 15 seconds to play we are playing hard and the opponent pushes we and I lose my balance at the referee deducts another half point to make it 6-6. The round finishes and we are playing golden point it is really tight and we go for it and both kick at the same time, the Danish player hits just before me so the last fight of the year ends with a loss but overall I had four brilliant performances and only lost on a golden kick.

So 2010 is finished and has been a hard year but as the year has gone on my work in training and all the support I have received is starting to pay-off.

Hi,

The final Chi Fighters League is published today and I have won the league for the second year running.

Even better my brother Scott is third and my sister Simone is joint fourth.

Congratulations also to Kieron Park (2nd) and Ryan Uren (joint 4th).

Hi all,

Had a great night last Saturday and collected the Chi Taekwondo fighter’s league trophy and was also presented with the fighter of the year award. We all had a brilliant night with a couple of fights and the Chi fight team playing well.

So as Christmas starts; I am looking at my training plan and struggling to fit all the training in as Chi has cancelled fight squad training until after the New Year. Cannot believe it to be honest! As they have a number of players wanting to represent England at the Commonwealth Cup in India in February and this will only leave them six weeks to prepare and the week after they have fighters attending the Swedish Open! Hope they realise that a month off is the equivalent of been out injured for three months, still there choice and hopefully a few more will train at Spennymoor during the holidays.

Club training with Master Russell is still on at Spennymoor until next Thursday so will be training as usual.

Master Peter in Doncaster is training till next Thursday and will then have training days during the holiday.

So my training plan will drop off a bit but come January I will be ready to step up the training and have an eight week programme before the US Open.

Also fed up with the snow as part of my training plan includes roadwork and I cannot get out on the roads at the minute.

I have sat down with my coaches and have taken advice from the BTCB and I will not be applying to represent England at the Commonwealth Cup. I was a bit disappointed at first as everybody said it was part of the Commonwealth games, but it is not, it is an event to enable Taekwondo to be considered as a commonwealth games sport. More importantly I was told my focus is the European Junior Championships in 2011 and representing Great Britain and as part of selection criteria I need to compete at the US Open which is only two weeks after the Commonwealth Cup. So doing the Commonwealth Cup will not fit into my training plan. And as a final remind I was told again that the Commonwealth did not carry any ranking points for GBR.

I know a few players who have applied to attend the Commonwealth Cup, so good lucks with the applications.

So the hard work is starting getting ready for 2011 and qualification for the Junior European, it is going to be an interesting year and I am going to work extremely hard to qualify.

Currently I have qualification points from the British International Open and the French Open and will need at least one more podium finish at the US, Dutch or German Open.

So training is the word for the next few weeks and I will keep you all updated.

I would like to thank you all for the support I have received from all the ASDA colleagues and customers in 2010. It has been a difficult year for me as I moved from the Cadets to the juniors’ categories, the year began not so well with failing to regain my national title and only coming away from the British National Championship with a bronze, and the first time in three years I could not say I was the British National Champion.

The “A” class season did not start well with a narrow defeat in the quarter finals of the Swedish Open in February and then the bad news seemed to pile up. The BTCB did not select me for the Junior Worlds as the average age of the winners of the Junior Worlds is 17 ½ years old and I was still only 14. This got me down and I went into a bit of a slump and lost my form and came up with some poor results.

I don’t know what when wrong, but something did and I sat down and talked to a number of people and decided I would work as hard as I could in training and turn things around. It also helped that I has lots of people supporting me and telling me that things would improve; I came back from Holland and Germany without medals but knew I was actually playing better and getting stronger and starting to grow. On the return from Germany I went to St James Park to meet Chris Tomlinson as part of UKSport and ASDA Sporting Chance programme. This helped me to understand more about how injury and loss of form affect your performance and that this is normal and will happen in anyone’s career.

I was fortunate to spend time with Steve Jennings the GBR coach who asked me some deep questions (whilst at the Sara Stevenson Excellence workshops) and Steve confirmed what Chris had spoke about.

During this time I was growing and went from a -41 Kg player to a -51 Kg player and grew in height by about five inches.

As the year went on things started to improve and although I always ended up on the podium in the UK I was still not winning tournaments. I attended a summer camp with Master Pete Adamson of Scorpion Taekwondo in Doncaster and things started to improve. Pete identified a couple of problems I was having and worked on them, with the support of Chi Taekwondo (Masters Russell, Brian and Graeme). I started getting stronger and started to feel better and also started winning tournaments again and working harder with the support I was receiving and the weekly sessions in Doncaster with Master Pete.

The British International Open came around and once again I medalled at the only A class tournament in Britain ensuring that I have medal at every British A Class in the Britain. I was playing better and winning again and happy with one major target to achieve win a medal at an A Class tournament aboard.

So with one A class tournament to go I went to Paris to compete in the French Open and achieved the target with a bronze and had medalled at an A class in my first year as a junior.
To complete the run I then medalled in Stuttgart taking the silver losing on golden point. So 2010 is finished and I have 2011 to look forward too.

So I will like to thank everybody for the support I have received this year and appreciate that when I had some really tough times, lots of people gathered around me and helped me through the first difficult time I have encountered and helped me to move forward. Some of the amazing boosts I have had this year include been named as ASDA Athlete of the month in November.
I could not possibly list everybody who has helped me this year (as there is some many people for some many clubs who have supported me) but would really like to say thank you to Spennymoor ASDA colleagues and customers for the support I have received, the ASDA Sporting Chance team and all at UKSport.

I would like to thank:
Master Graeme Thomson (my fight coach)
Master Russell Shaw (my club coach)
Master Brian Tilley (Chi Taekwondo)

I would like to thank Master Pete Adamson from Doncaster for his support and the additional training I have received and the coaching in Paris and Stuttgart.

I would also like to thank the GBR coach Steve Jennings as that short time we spent discussing how I was doing just helped so much.

I would like to thank Mum and Dad, Scott and Simone for all the work they do and the support they give to enable me to keep doing Taekwondo.

So 2010 is over and I am looking forward to 2011 and hopefully can continue to improve at Taekwondo and progress but I know that I have a brilliant people who help and support me.

Merry Christmas everybody and thank you. Jamie

Hi,

Just a quick update to say Happy New Year to everybody.

Have trained over Christmas and will be back in full training from 2nd Jan.

Happy New Year – Jamie