World Judo Champion Neil Adams Visits Bexhill's A A Judo Club

During his time there he took both adults and juniors through their paces showing them some of his expertise and skills in various training sessions, giving them a taste of what world class judo is all about. He also officially presented the club with it's club 'Mark' award.

Neil became World Champion in 1981 when he won a Gold Medal at the World Championships in Maastricht, he also won Silver Medals at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.

He said he was more than happy to donate his time to events such as this adding: "It's all about promoting judo and making sure that we do our best towards getting good results in 2012 and also the development of judo throughout the country. We have great support here in Bexhill, a lot of the youngsters that come here are from 12 different clubs in the surrounding area - we do this sort of event all over the country. It creates a lot of interest and, continues to be a lot of interest for a long time afterwards. It's not just about the one day we are there, a lot of the kids and the coaches take things home that they can learn or that they want to teach the kids so it's an on-going thing."

Talking of judo's increasing popularity he said: "I suppose a lot of people would say that judo is a minority sport but we've always been fairly successful Olympic wise. Worldwide we've had world champions with Olympic medallist's way back to 1964. As far as a sport that is used in a school curriculum - that's what it was developed for, it is part of education really. It's not just education as far as sport's concerned but it teaches the kids a bit of self discipline as well."

Club Chairman Jason Meek said they were delighted that Neil had been able to dedicate so much of his time to the club and explained what the club Mark is: "It's a government accreditation scheme. It shows that the club has reached the minimum level required of qualified staff, coaches, organisation skills etc. Both myself and other members of staff have been on a lot of various training and child protection courses. We are really please to get this award as it's quite a prestigious thing to have."

At the present time having a club Mark is a purely voluntary thing for sports clubs, but Jason believes that there will soon be a time when all clubs will be required to have one as he believes they are an important requisite.

Also at the event was Karen French, Club Development Officer from the British Judo Association she said: "Today is a wonderful experience for the children to actually enjoy some judo with someone like Neil who is a past World Champion."