JAZ brace for Warren tourney

Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
JUDO Association of Zimbabwe are bracing up for the inaugural Brian Warren Open tournament slated for Saturday at Hellenic Primary School in Harare. The tournament is in honour of the late former JAZ president Brian Warren, who passed away in 2015 after playing a vital role in the development and promotion of judo in the country as the president for more than two decades.

JAZ president Smart Deke said Saturday’s tournament is in recognition of Warren’s contribution to the sport that he loved so much that he would sometimes sacrifice his own resources to keep it going.

“Actually in judo we have Sensei Jigoro Kano, founder of judo and we do have a commemoration day for him on October 28 every year, so for us as the new executive we really want to honour our own (Brian Warren) since he passed away. For judo to be known in Zimbabwe it was because of Brian Warren. He is the one who introduced judo in Zimbabwe, that’s why we are naming this tournament after him.

“He played a very big role . . . he sometimes paid his own money to keep judo going. For us it means a lot, it gives us a big push that we need to surpass what he did, to work hard and spread the sport throughout the country,” said Deke.

The tournament was initially scheduled for November 4 before it was moved to this weekend. And as part of their build-up to the tournament, the national association had a technical course for the officials to be in charge of the event early this month.

“At the moment we are at a peak point, we are ready to go, we have set up everything. We actually managed to have a technical course on the 4th of November just to polish up on our technical officials, to just help with refereeing and the technical table officials. We are going to run two judo mats at the same time, usually we run those mats at international events. So my expectation is we are going to have more parents coming to support and have an understanding of judo. I think it’s going to give everyone an understanding of the sport.

“We have invited the Japanese Ambassador, they are the ones who are also supporting us. And for us as an association it gives our technical team the opportunity for a good assessment to see which athlete has potential for major events we are preparing for next year,” said Deke.

The national association is also taking advantage of the one-day event to encourage schools to take judo seriously with several schools invited to be part of Saturday’s programme.

“We are going to have all ages from five year-olds to the senior level. Mainly we want it to be like this because we want everyone to a look on how judo is from the beginning at the lower ages up to the seniors competing level.

“Actually the main idea is we want judo to be part of the schools’ curriculum just like any other sport. In other countries they have begun rolling it out in schools, so we want to sell the same idea in Zimbabwe,” Deke said.

Some of the schools expected to be involved in this project include Prince Edward, St John’s College, Gateway, Tafara High 1, Girls High School and Hellenic Primary School.